Chapter 16
DANIEL
The to-do list is never far away. Scarlett is a woman with an agenda.
I’m a man with one too.
We are gathering intel, making decisions, and prepping to visit more inns tomorrow.
After the detour at Monet’s home, we return to the task at hand.
Assessment.
Due diligence.
Back at the inn, we check out the entire grounds of the hotel, taking photos for Cole, sending them along to him. We wander across the property, drinking in the view, getting a sense of the spaciousness, how it feels, how it looks.
What would it be like to be a guest and wander across this section of the vineyard adjacent to the hotel?
How would it feel to wake up in the morning, fling open the doors, and stroll across the grounds?
Would this inn inspire you to post a review on travel sites? Show photos all over social media?
Since other guests are snapping photos and sharing them, we decide that yes, in fact, this hotel elicits that sort of reaction.
Like the spies or mystery shoppers that we are, we canvas the inside too. We walk up and down the hallway on each floor, check out the stairwells, visit the pool. The platinum-blonde beauty by my side taps away on her tablet the entire time.
“Always the notetaker,” I say.
“Notes are good for both of us,” she says.
“They absolutely are.” I tap the side of my head. “I’m recording every single detail up here.”
“And what is your conclusion so far?”
“I love it,” I say, holding her gaze, and I’m not just talking about the hotel.
I’m talking about the whole experience of being here with Scarlett.
The things she’s shared with me. Getting to know her better.
Understanding her. I love knowing her, and that’s a terrifying notion except that we also have built-in safety precautions.
We have an escape plan—that’s what will make this work. We’ll stick to it.
Of course we will.
Once our afternoon of intel-gathering is complete, Scarlett says she needs to change her shoes.
“You’re switching to bedtime slippers already?”
“Au contraire,” she says with a flirty grin as she sails into our suite, rustles around in her suitcase, and finds a pair of sapphire-blue heels.
She slides into them, and my mouth waters.
“You’re stunning,” I say as I roam my gaze over her body, savoring the shape of her long, lean legs, imagining how they’d look draped over my shoulders.
“You’re not so shabby yourself.”
She ditches her wig next, brushing out her hair, looking fantastic as herself again.
We head to the veranda for cocktail hour—another opportunity to get a sense of the property.
Because one thing that cocktails do is loosen lips.
Soon enough, as Scarlett sips a glass of Chenin blanc, she’s making small talk with another couple. A blonde named Elodie, who looks like she could be Kristen Bell’s stunt double, and her glasses-wearing hipster wife named Hazel, who reminds me of Kerry Washington. They’re from Las Vegas, they say.
Scarlett introduces herself as Violet, saying she worked in retail, and asks the others why they’re here.
Elodie sets a hand on her wife’s shoulder. “We’re newlyweds. Just like you two,” she says.
Scarlett smiles. “Is it that obvious?”
The blonde leans closer to us, adopts a wry grin, then points to Scarlett’s hand. “Patently. The way you look at each other—like there is no one else in the world. Also, I love your ring. It’s so daring. So bright,” Elodie says, and flashes her own ring, bright and blue. A sapphire.
“Some women like it loud. Some women like it bright.” With every word Scarlett shares with this couple, it’s like my business partner is revealing more of herself.
To me.
And I gobble it up, taking notes the same way as before when we were analyzing the hotel balconies.
Hazel clears her throat, weighing in. “So when did you two get married?”
“Three days ago,” I chime in. “In Paris, where we live now. The ceremony was held in a small little passage—Galerie Vivienne. Mosaic floors. Stained-glass ceilings. Iron latticework,” I say, painting the scene and seeing it vividly, a small, private affair.
Scarlett jumps right in with the ruse. “It was gorgeous. Just friends and family,” she says, and my heart thumps harder. She imagines our pretend wedding the same way. This . . . delights me.
Elodie brings her hand to her chest. “You look so happy together. That’s so wonderful. How did you meet?”
Elodie is hitting on all the details Scarlett and I haven’t practiced. I suppose I didn’t think we’d be queried over them. But that’s the joy of role-play. It involves improvisational skills.
Scarlett seems to savor this thrill, her lips curving into a grin, her eyes twinkling. “You’ll probably never believe this,” she says in a whisper.
“Oh, try me,” the blonde says eagerly.
Scarlett shifts her gaze back and forth then drops her voice to a whisper. “We met at a club. One of those risqué, after-dark type of clubs.”
The blonde’s eyes widen. “A sex club?”
Scarlett laughs, nodding.
Holy shit. My pretend wife has quite an active imagination.
“The funny thing is we work in the same building. But we met after-hours at a sex club. It turned out we had a lot of the same predilections,” Scarlett says with a lift of her eyebrow, a naughty little gesture.
Hazel’s face goes a little red, but she sits up straighter, higher. “That’s great that you have so much in common.”
“And when I found out he was in the same building, I kept finding reasons to go to his office. One thing led to another . . .” Scarlett says, tossing me a dirty glance, crafting such a gorgeous, seductive tale.
I pick up the thread from my improvisation partner, playing along easily. “Darling, are you truly going to tell them about all the things we did in my corner office?”
Elodie’s eyes go wider. “I know I’d love to hear. Wouldn’t you, babe?”
Hazel laughs, a little embarrassed. She adjusts her glasses, then lifts her chin. “Fine. I’d love the dirty details too.”
“Mmm. I had a feeling you would,” Elodie says.
Scarlett runs her finger along the rim of her wineglass, dipping her head then raising it. “Let me just say we had the hottest sex of my life on his desk,” she says.
My blood surges, heating as my wife opens the door to her fantasies.
Then she kicks it wide open with a stiletto-heel boot.
“And there was nothing ordinary about it. I’d never felt anything like it before.
I was dominated. And it was everything. I wanted the roughness.
I wanted the pain. He made me feel alive.
He made me feel desired. In the previous relationships I’d been in, I’d never felt that way. ”
Holy. Fuck.
Scarlett just unspooled her dirty dreams.
In my lap.
She laid them all out for me to see.
I see them. Oh hell, do I ever.
Elodie waves a hand in front of her face. “My God. I think I’m getting turned on just hearing about the two of you together.”
Hazel leans in closer, kisses her neck, and whispers in her ear, “I can help you with that, sweetie.”
“You better.” Elodie gives her wife a kiss, then adds, “And on that note, I think we’re going to have to go back to our room.”
Hazel grabs her drink, swallows it in a down-the-hatch fashion, then clears her throat. “Thank you for getting my wife worked up. We’re heading upstairs.”
Scarlett laughs playfully, then waggles her fingers. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I’ll do everything you’d do,” Elodie says with a wink, then they scurry away.
Scarlett tosses back the rest of her wine and sets down the glass.
My gaze pins hers. “Let’s do all the things you would do.”
As we walk down the hall to our room, I slide a hand around her waist. “You have a little bit of an exhibitionist in you,” I whisper.
“Apparently, I like it when strangers think we have the hottest sex ever,” she says.
“They don’t have to think it. Because I know it. Because we do.”
She stops, drags her nails down my chest, and grabs the waistband of my trousers. “We do. It’s raw and it’s primal, and my husband can’t get enough of me.”
I growl, desire pounding through my body as Scarlett makes all of her wishes clear.
She’s communicating her fantasies. Letting me know she’s never had the kind of sex that she wants.
She’s never been worshipped. She’s never been ravaged.
I cup her cheeks, gripping her face hard.
“You’ve never been fucked good and hard by a man who wants nothing more than to have you. ”
“No. I haven’t.”
“That’s about to change.”
We open the door and go inside.