Chapter 2
FUCK.
It’s all I can think of around this woman, in every expression of the word.
I feel my heart reaching again for Scarlett. For love I don’t deserve because…
Fuck: it’s what I want to do to her. Hard. Often. In wicked ways that make her scream my name. And yes, I want others to watch me do it again. To witness how I own her pussy, her mouth, her ass, every inch of her flesh.
Scarlett is MINE, and she knows it.
Fuck: that’s what my life is—fucked—because I already have.
I gave myself permission for one night to lose control, to fuck a beautiful stranger, the hottest woman I’ve ever met in a sex club. I let myself burn for her. Emotions I no longer allow consumed me.
I was there for my friends’ birthday party, not to break my rule. But how could I resist?
When my friends introduced me to Scarlett, she scorched my breath away. Her dark, fiery hair. Her mysterious tattoos. Her fearless stare. That intriguing scar through her eyebrow. The temptation was too great. The beast I cage inside me came out that night, and Scarlett didn’t back down.
No, she was a beautiful beast right back, biting me as much as I bit her. She left scratches down my back and across my ass that I treasured the sting of for days.
And fuck. What am I thinking? She’s standing behind me, and I remember every beautiful, obscene thing I did to her as I’m about to take her to meet…
My daughter?
But I have no choice.
See?
FUCK.
Because I don’t matter; only my daughter does. Gia’s all I have. I’ll give my last breath for her, but I’m no fool. I can’t always be there to protect her. She’s got a last name worth billions, and everyone knows it. The damn paparazzi won’t leave me alone. They camp outside my hotels.
“The World’s Sexiest Most Eligible Billionaire Is Also a Single Dad.”
That news story went viral and ruined my life—our lives. And now, I need help.
I have no life, but my daughter deserves one without me, without the Damning Guilt I wear every day, matching my usual DG suit.
“This is your security code for the elevator and my front door.” I command, “Memorize it, then destroy it.” I turn and hand my business card with handwritten digits to…
Scarlett.
Her name.
How I’ve moaned it so many times since that night. Alone in my bed, on my knees, I grab my headboard while I fuck my fist so hard for her. Like I’m behind her again. Like I’m fisting her alluring red hair and owning her addictive pink pussy with my hard cock ripping her open until her sweet, milky cum glistens down her thighs for me.
She drove me wild.
Gazing at her tight, puckered ass, I spit into it, ready to…
Stop it.
I shake my skull and the carnal memory away, willing my cock not to swell in her presence.
“We each have a unique code to access the penthouse.” I fixate on business. “There are cameras, too—the usual.” I point to the ones in the elevator and focus on Charlie Ravenel, standing beside me.
When I asked around for the best security company, HGR was at the top of the list. They provide security for the most high-value targets. And when I inquired with my unique need—a woman protection officer—I only heard one name.
Charlie Ravenel.
I’ve seen the news. I know who she is. She’s a bodyguard, now married to Daniel Pierce, the British celebrity icon, bringing her a world of love and trouble.
Charlie took my call but turned me down. She explained she was taking over the HGR Atlanta office and was no longer available for the job, but she assured me she had someone even better.
“She’s a former MMA fighter,” Charlie told me. “She’s a featherweight with champion titles, but you’d never know. Your daughter will love her, I promise. I’ve trusted this woman to protect my family, too.”
I never asked for the name of this protection officer sent to me like an answered prayer. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. But holy fuck, when that gift walked into my office today.
My answered prayer was HER…Scarlett.
The woman I sold my soul for.
It took everything I had not to bend Scarlett over my desk and fist her auburn hair again, ripping those sexy suit pants down and loving how she fights me while I remind her tight ass who it belongs to.
But no.
We have to hide the truth, though I sweat at the sight of her. More than needing the hottest fuck of my life again, I need someone to protect my daughter. And I don’t need to read a contract or a statement of conduct to know…you can’t fuck a client. A protection officer cannot get involved with their mark—the one they are hired to protect.
It’s common sense.
Even though Scarlett isn’t protecting me, she sure as hell can’t fuck the father of the girl she’s guarding.
My girl.
My life.
“How many people have access to your penthouse?” Charlie keeps us on topic as the elevator dings to the tenth floor.
“Me. Gia’s nanny, Celine. A few on my staff,” I answer her. “Only the people I trust. They get unique codes so we can track who enters.”
The golden elevator doors slide open to a parlor. White marble floors and ivory grasscloth walls greet us with a fresh, floral arrangement of palm fronds and hot pink hibiscus on a gold console table to our left.
This is my home, my sanctuary, and now it’s my hell, too.
“We also enter our code here,” I tell Charlie, but I won’t look at Scarlett.
Even though I can feel her on my heels.
On my back.
On my skin.
My psyche flashes, taunting me with every dark thing I hide, every forbidden thing I desire, everything I did to Scarlett, and even more I crave to do, but I shove it away.
Not. Ever. Again.
I unlock the front door by tapping the code into the security pad, and the beep is the signal. I open the white-paneled door, which always sends Gia running into my arms the second she hears it.
“Baba!” she shouts, and for a moment, while I scoop her up, she’s the only one in the world.
Her big brown eyes. Her long, bouncing brown curls. The freckles across her button nose. That cute little bow in her lips. She looks exactly like her mother.
And it kills me every time.
“My kóri.” Pecking her cheek, I call her “daughter,” speaking Greek to her as much as possible while Celine, her nanny, teaches Gia French.
It’s how I was raised with a Greek father and a French mother. I honor tradition. Well, family traditions.
Other parts of my life are very non-traditional, and they’re not allowed around my daughter. They hide elsewhere in my hotel. They hide deep in my dark, twisted heart, and death will visit anyone who crosses that line.
Except for one person.
The only one I trust with my secrets.
“Meet my friends.” I squeeze Gia tighter, turning to confront this finally. To face the fire of Scarlett standing in my foyer.
“This is Ms. Charlie,” I share. “She’s friends with Uncle Redix. And this is…”
I freeze, staring at Scarlett while searching through the last hour.
Charlie never introduced Scarlett by her first name.
“Scarlett. My name is Scarlett,” she answers with blue eyes that’ve been murdering me for the past hour. But now they sparkle at the sight of my daughter in my arms.
Tenderly, she smiles at Gia, and I see the glimpse I caught of Scarlett that night.
It wasn’t just our raw sex; I noticed the tender things about her, too. How she gently brushed the hair off my forehead. How she comfortably lingered her fingertips over my bare chest when we were done. How she fit perfectly in my arms, making my heart beat alive again.
And FUCK.
Here I go again.
I thought Scarlett ripped my breath away that night in the shadows of a sex club, her hair twirling in long auburn flames. But now, in the sunlight of my home, I’m captivated by the light copper strands framing her stunning face, how they tumble over her shoulders.
Her skin was the softest I’ve ever caressed—or spanked—but now I can see her slight tan highlighting faint freckles across her sculpted nose. And those lips. They pout, so full and soft in a petal pink, but it’s her eyes. They remind me of the Aegean Ocean, where I grew up, and I want to dive into them again.
Scarlett has the feminine face of a seductress, a lethal body I can’t forget, and now I know how she got that scar through her eyebrow.
She’s an MMA fighter.
That’s got to be how she got it.
And that’s got to be why she fucked me like it was a fight for her life, for our lives. She won me over. And over. And over. And I couldn’t break her, though she screamed for me to try. It’s why I gave in to her, knowing she could take me, she could survive me.
If only for one night.
There were so many layers to her, and I want to rip them open again, watching them pulse, raw and dripping for me.
But I’m holding my daughter in my arms.
And.. fuck.
Stop it!
My worlds can’t collide.
I bounce Gia on my arm, explaining, “Scarlett will help me and Celine take you to school. She’s going to help us whenever we have to go somewhere.”
“Why?”
It’s Gia’s favorite question.
“Because I get tired or busy sometimes,” Celine answers behind Gia in a sweet voice. “I do appreciate the help.” She steps around us, greeting Scarlett and Charlie.
I already debriefed Gia’s nanny on what was happening, how I was hiring a bodyguard for Gia.
At first, Celine bristled at my plan, worried about the intrusion and how a big man may scare Gia, but when I told her I was hiring a woman—she agreed, relieved.
Celine was my nanny, more like my big sister thirty years ago, but I grew up, and she married and had kids. They’re grown, and then her husband died, so when Celine heard that my wife had died too, she came back and saved me from inevitable failure.
I had a one year-old daughter and a life I didn’t want to live, but for Gia’s sake.
I didn’t even know how to make waffles in the toaster.
“Will you stay the night with me too? Like Celine?” Gia cants her head at Scarlett, and here come a million questions. “Will you come with Baba and take me to my new school? Will you drive, or will Baba because he says bad words when he drives? He doesn’t like the big bridge.”
I don’t like that big bridge, the Ravenel Bridge, for a tragic reason. One Gia doesn’t remember, but I do. It finds me screaming in my sleep.
“Yes,” Scarlett won’t let her smile drop, gently answering Gia, “I will drive with your Baba and take you to school. And sometimes if his work is too busy, I’ll take you, but I love the big bridge. It has the prettiest view of the water.”
Gia pokes my cheek with her tiny finger. “Baba, she’s not afraid of the bridge, so she can drive us.”
“I’m not afraid of a bridge,” I lie, feeling the grumpy setting I default to kick in. “It’s the damn drivers I hate.”
“We’re not supposed to say bad words,” Gia admonishes me. She’s got me wrapped around her poking finger.
“You’re supposed to finish your lunch.”
I set her down, but Gia’s not budging.
“But you didn’t tell me.” Her fists land on her waist. She stares up at Scarlett like no adult intimidates her, and I love it and hate it, too. “Will you live here too? Like Celine? We have lots of rooms. I’ll give you one.”
I’ve guarded Gia too closely. I’ve kept her with me in this hotel because I won’t let her out of my sight. She’s everything to me. And she knows she’ll inherit our family business. She already acts like she’s running it, handing out hotel rooms like Halloween candy. But Gia needs friends her age. She needs to be free and five, not fifty as I feel, though that’s twenty years from now.
Yes, she spends time with her cousin, but it’s not enough.
Our hotels may be my only world, but I won’t imprison my daughter in the same legacy. I never got to dream for myself. I had no future but the one attached to my last name. Not that it’s a bad life. It’s a luxurious one, full of exotic locations and fascinating people.
But it was never my choice.
My wife was my choice, the innocent dream I dared to have. We married young at the courthouse without our parents’ blessing, and I’m still being punished for it.
Warmly, Scarlett squats before Gia like she enjoys kids. This is the side I saw of her when I let myself hold her for too long in the ashes of our sex.
It was the most I’ve felt for a woman in years.
It was a grave mistake.
“I bet all your rooms are beautiful,” Scarlett answers Gia. “Thank you, but I have my place. I live just down the street, with a view of the big bridge and a puppy. Maybe you can come visit us one day.”
Gia yanks my hand. “Can I, Baba? Can I play at…” She pauses, excitement raising her voice. “What’s your name again?”
“Scarlett,” she softly answers.
“Can I play at Scarlett’s house? With her puppy?”
I want to play at Scarlett’s house. I want to play with Scarlett. I want to be a filthy dog with her. All the dark games I crave with her body.
But the fact that I can’t have Scarlett again, and I never should’ve, twists my face. Guilt tastes bitter in my mouth, igniting my fury.
“Gia, it’s time for business, not play right now.” I nudge her toward Celine. “Go finish your lunch.”
Gia mirrors me, twisting her face, too. “Baba, you’re being grumpy.”
All it takes is the raise of my eyebrow, and she huffs with a stomp, spinning around and taking Celine’s hand as she leads her back down the hall into the kitchen.
For the next hour, I sit with Charlie and Scarlett in my penthouse living room with its wrap-around view over the historic city and church spires.
Charleston isn’t my home. It was my wife’s home.
I met her here one summer as a waiter at this hotel. Despite being a junior at Harvard at the time, my father made me learn the ropes. By twenty-five, I’d held almost every job in the hotel, from cleaning rooms to becoming the Chief Executive after my father suddenly died from a stroke.
Darby, my wife, was a Southern debutante and hated it. She hid in the corner during her Cotillion, and that’s where we met, in the shadows of a ballroom where we weren’t supposed to fall in love.
And that’s where her memory lives now, in the shadows of my heart that will never stop loving my wife, that will never forgive myself.
That’s why this feels so wrong.
And so right.
Sunlight dances through Scarlett’s fiery strands, and I try not to stare. The edges of a red rose tattoo peek out from under the left cuff of her blue silk blouse, and I try not to remember everything about her, how I lost my mind inside her.
But I do.
Scarlett Jones was my greatest relief and my biggest regret. Because now it’s just business, as Charlie clarifies terms.
“During the hours Gia is in school, where will Scarlett be posted, and what will she do?”
I pause before I answer, knowing exactly why I torture myself.
“I’ll give Ms. Jones an office beside mine, and she can be my detail, too, if I have to go anywhere high-risk.”
That keeps Scarlett close, near the other temptations I hide on the same floor as my office, and that will only make my torment more satisfying.
“What’s my cover?” Scarlett asks me in her tempting voice—deep and raspy with a Southern accent.
Damn, the dirty things I made her say. “Yes, Master,” she groaned with my dick fucking her ass, “I’m your whore.”
I lick my lips at the memory while I answer her, “You’re my personal assistant. That’s what my staff has been told. I have secretaries, but I’ve never had an assistant. They think because Gia’s starting school, that I’ll need help, and it’s not entirely untrue.”
But this is untrue: me, trying to act professional when I remember how Scarlett’s pussy tastes like honey. When I want it dripping with my cum into my mouth again.
I swear she can read my filthy mind, chewing her plump lip while Charlie insists, “But let’s be clear. Ms. Jones is not your personal assistant, and she’s not a nanny. I respect those professions, but she needs to be free to perform hers. She’s a protection officer and can’t be distracted by tasks that endanger your daughter. It’s a tricky position, and lines can get blurred. I won’t have one of my officers exploited or her mark compromised. Ever.”
That snaps me to attention.
Charlie Ravenel is a badass and doesn’t play. I see why HGR Atlanta made her the boss. Why Daniel Pierce is a damn lucky man. Why they say pregnant women glow. And why they say never fuck with a Marine; I know some of her story.
“I respect that,” I answer her. “Ms. Jones has free reign. She tells me what she needs to do her job.”
“I’ll need a room here,” Scarlett replies, “and Gia can’t know about it. She may blow my cover, but I’ll need a place to secure my weapons, change, shower, or stay the night if you have an event or an obligation. We need to cover our bases.”
I nod, tempted to give her a certain suite I keep locked on the executive floor, but no, Scarlett’s off-limits. I never should’ve broken my rule in the first place, but I took a forbidden bite, and now I want to devour her.
This will be more than a job.
This is perfect.
Hunger is a constant state for me, and starvation is my drug. Having Scarlett so close but never having her again will be my favorite addiction. It’s my punishment. My secret. It only heightens my senses and feels so right because what I desire to do to her is so wrong. It’s dark and taboo, and I need it in my life, or I won’t survive.
It fills the room with a brief silence before another beep sounds at my front door opening. Then Gia’s sneakers squeak across the marble floors, running to greet our guest—the one who usually stops by after her lunch.
“Zar!” Gia’s squeals before she giggles. “We have new friends!”
Scarlett turns her head toward the wide doorway of my living room with its ornate wooden molding. Charlie does, too.
And the tall, handsome sight that fills the doorway is my other temptation.
He’s mine.