Chapter 27
Estella’s heart was pounding in her ears as she fled up the stairs of the dive bar.
She stumbled as she reached the top step and when a woman reached out to help her, she completely forgot herself, rearing back furiously.
The woman startled. Chill, she hissed, before her friend grabbed her in horror, whispering frantically in her ear.
Estella shoved past them, into the heat of the bar, unseeing.
Because what the fuck was that? Estella had just been doing what she always did: using her sexuality to crush someone, to shove them away, to prove her dominance.
She’d done it last to Alison Hartmann, who was, it had to be said — albeit reluctantly — an incredibly attractive woman.
But she and Alison had both known what it was.
A kiss off, as it were. A final way for Estella to win the long-pitched battle between two rivals.
That kiss had been nothing but a victory lap: fun, stupid, enjoyably mean.
The cost of doing business with Estella Grant.
So that’s what she was doing to Ellie when she’d kissed her.
At least, that’s what she’d meant to do.
Ellie was so obvious, all cute and flustered and confused, just enough there in the air between them that Estella could use it to humiliate her if she chose.
A kiss to push her away, to say oh I see right through you, Ellie Graham, and you won’t even get close.
Ellie would shrink at a kiss like that. She’d be so goddamn mad, she’d never try to see Estella again.
And she’d definitely stop her far too astute brain from following on all those observations Estella hadn’t even known she was making to connect the dots.
The kiss would derail all of that. That’s what she’d wanted when she’d kissed her.
Only when her lips met Ellie’s, Ellie hadn’t frozen or recoiled.
She’d melted into Estella, opening up for her to take.
And Estella… Estella had simply fallen right in, taking everything she could.
That little choked moan from Ellie’s throat had driven her wild with heady power; she’d tasted Ellie’s mouth; she’d felt the slide of their tongues meet, setting off an inferno inside her.
It almost hurt to walk, that’s how much she was burning from that kiss.
“You good, boss?”
Estella gripped tight to Ken who’d met her at the door. She wondered how she looked, flushed and unsteady, like she was drunk. No alcohol, all Ellie.
“Get me to the car,” is all she managed, and he whisked her away from Eloise Silver for good.
Estella refused to give herself processing time.
She had none to give, when it came down to it.
Yolanda was pulling in key people she relied on, left, right and centre, sniffing into things she had no business sniffing.
Gio — after some time to sweat it out — was released, officially as a sign of good faith, unofficially because he was needed elsewhere, a means to Estella’s ends.
She lived and breathed her job; she had to. Time was running out.
She spent her days in her downtown office, running interference around Yolanda where she could.
Keeping Florence protected was her biggest priority.
Right now, she was flying under the radar, just a bit player as far as the rest of the Grants believed, and barely known at all to the police.
If Estella had to sacrifice anyone else within the ranks for this it would be worth it.
Florence could reach where she couldn’t, and the brighter and louder Estella was, the bigger the shadow for Florence to work below.
LOOK AT ME, Estella all but jumped and waved.
It was a fine balance keeping the Florellis distracted and the police off her case without ending up dead or in jail, but Estella had walked that line a long fucking time.
It was the end of the day — night, in fact — when Estella heard a hushed commotion out in the anteroom beyond her office doors.
She shook her head, her eyes still fixed on her laptop screen, knowing Ken would deal with whatever it was.
God, why did running a business like hers still involve spreadsheets.
They really should wheel her out to do talks in schools. She’d be a brilliant crime deterrent.
Her office door creaked open and Ken poked his head in, looking bemused.
“Visitor,” he announced. At her nod, he opened the door and Ellie Graham flounced through. Ken closed the door behind her to return to his post, and Estella tried to hide her shock. She placed both hands on her desk and gave her scariest, most bone-wilting glare.
“What the fuck is this?” she asked, her tone crushed ice.
“I don’t know,” Ellie retorted, her gaze not remotely cowed. “Why the fuck did you kiss me?”
Estella sucked in a breath. Ellie crossed the room to put her own hands on Estella’s desk directly across from her.
She wore a white dress, like a lamb to slaughter, right there in Estella’s den.
It shouldn’t have worked — she was so pale — but instead she looked otherworldly, ethereal, her dark eyes and hair like a stain, and for one single second Estella felt afraid of her.
Who was this woman, who slipped inside Estella’s skin like a wraith?
Who pulled her in like a goddamned siren with her kiss, who took out Estella’s rival with a single killing blow, who stood here now, radiating fury and innocence like an avenging angel. Who was she?
Estella jerked herself back into reality. Eloise Silver was just an actress. She held no power here. Estella pressed her hands down on her desk and stood up.
“I told you we were done,” she said, in that voice that made grown men shrink. Ellie didn’t budge.
“We’re not,” she said, like her word was final. It pissed Estella off. She wouldn’t be spoken to like this in the very seat of her power. She shoved back the chair hard behind her and strode around to the other side of the desk, making Ellie spin to look at her, getting right up in her face.
“You need to leave. Now.” They were toe to toe, the desk at Ellie’s back, nowhere to move. Ellie wasn’t her height anymore, not when only one of them was wearing heels. She looked off balance, and Estella felt better. In control. It only lasted a second.
“Or what?” Ellie looked up at her, dark eyes full of challenge. “You’ll kill me? Kiss me again? I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
“You fucking should be.” Estella felt the blood rush to her head.
No one spoke to her like this. She shoved at Ellie, her hand on her hip, remembered tripping her to the ground that first time they’d met, shoving her back against a wall.
But her hand didn’t let go this time. She couldn’t make herself let go.
“Why did you kiss me?” Ellie wouldn’t relent. Her chest was heaving. Maybe she was scared, after all. The thought was a relief. Estella dug her nails into her hip, but instead of trying to escape her grip, Ellie’s lips parted, a shaky breath escaping her like a prayer.
“I kissed you to make you stop.” Estella couldn’t believe she had to explain this. “I kissed you to make you leave.”
“How’s that working for you?” Ellie looked down at their bodies, barely an inch between them, Estella still holding onto her, her fingers betraying to them both the hold that Ellie had.
“What’s wrong with you?” Estella demanded, even as her skin prickled with heat. “Why are you letting me do this to you?”
“Do what?” Ellie did the worst thing she could do to Estella.
She leaned in. Deliberately. Pressed her body right into Estella’s, let her feel the way she was trembling.
Oh please god, let it be Ellie who was trembling, please no— She felt her own breath burst out, ragged from her throat.
This wasn’t happening. Estella didn’t want like this.
Had never in her life wanted like this. It burned everywhere Ellie touched her, and worse, where she didn’t.
“You have to leave,” Estella gritted out, trying to turn herself to stone. Truth tumbled out of her, the last resort she had, weaponising it to make a shield. “I kissed you because I wanted to humiliate you. Like you’re humiliating yourself right now.”
Ellie paused in her tracks and Estella felt like a sharp sword to her own chest that she was going to win.
But then, Ellie smiled. It was Estella’s smile, a smile of pure seduction.
Estella saw the very second it broke, merging into Ellie’s smile.
She looked fucking victorious. “You’re a liar,” she said and tilted her mouth up for the kiss she already knew was coming.
Estella kissed her out of fury, out of wanting the burning to stop, she had to win this, whatever this had become.
She kissed Ellie hard, opening her mouth with her own, licking into her firmly to make Ellie know that she was not leading this, she was not getting her way.
Estella would take whatever she fucking chose to, and this kiss was the proof.
Ellie didn’t fight her. Ellie just took it, let Estella take over, her hands slipping around Estella’s waist to hold on for dear life, her mouth open and ready and so willing, a moan of need slipping from her that made Estella want to push her harder, because Ellie was getting exactly what she wanted.
She was winning. Estella pulled her mouth back from her and Ellie gasped, her eyes opening on Estella’s face, dark, heated, hungry. “More,” she said. “Please—”
“No,” Estella said sharply, shocked at how her voice sounded.
Tight and firm like she wasn’t burning alive.
She let go of Ellie, shook her hands from her body.
Did not, crucially, step away. She already knew it was a fatal error.
Wondered if Ellie saw it too. She seemed to see so much.
“You don’t deserve it. You ignore what I wanted. You ignore what I tell you to do.”
“I’m giving you what you want,” Ellie said breathlessly. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”