Chapter Forty-Five
Two years and FIVE months ago
It had been two weeks since Achilles dangled her from the bridge and declared her his property.
In those two weeks, life as she knew it ceased to exist.
Yes, she was still able to attend her luncheons, parties, and spa treatments with her fake friends.
But now she had to walk around with a Camorrista bodyguard at all times.
It cramped her style, not to mention reminded her of the dark period of her life where freedom was nothing but a faraway dream.
Every time she tried to shake her security off, Achilles appointed more manpower to watch over her. It drove her to the brink of madness. The suffocating reality of living inside the confines of someone else’s decisions.
She saw Achilles at social functions the Camorra and Irish both took part in. He often had women on his arm. Rubbing his conquests in her face seemed to be his favorite pastime. He was hardly celibate.
So why should she be?
She would show him she wasn’t afraid of him.
She was going to screw someone else and enjoy it.
Tierney had tried consensual sex for the first time when she was twenty-two.
She couldn’t remember the man’s name any more than she could his face.
She’d been drunk, numb to the world and to the dangers that lurked inside it.
All she remembered was that the man hit on her at a bar and that she took him home.
The act itself was tedious and awkward. But she continued to try drawing pleasure from sex anyway.
She was so deep in denial about her past that she convinced herself if she tried hard enough, she’d be able to enjoy it.
When she was twenty-three, she had a one-night stand with a drunken Irish sailor.
When they got to business, she suggested he might want to take a shower because he was sweaty.
He slapped her hard across the face in response.
She remembered the shock, the surprise…but no terror.
He’d expected her to flee, maybe to cower and cry.
She did neither. Instead, she tilted her chin up and said, “Harder now, you wuss.”
He slapped her again. She tried scratching his eyes out.
He threw her onto the bed, mounting her, muttering that she was a mad banshee.
She laughed. Each time he hit her, she came alive.
She liked fighting for dominance, and she liked losing.
It got her hot and bothered, and though she knew it was probably ingrained in her fucked-up past, she had no plans to fix it.
She had a string of lovers over the years. All of them gave her pockets of pleasure, but none ever gave her peace.
It had been six months since she’d had sex.
The lucky winner was found at an Emilia Spencer exhibition in a swanky Upper East Side private showing. The penthouse belonged to the Spencers, and the man in question was delectable.
His name was Tucker, and he was tall, well built, and bore an uncanny resemblance to a Renaissance sculpture. He wore his suit like a second skin.
They enjoyed their martinis together, admiring a painting of a cherry blossom.
“Are you going to buy anything?” she asked, sliding an olive into her mouth. Her Camorra-assigned bodyguard stood only a few feet behind, hands clasped at his front, face impassive.
“Probably,” Tucker sighed. “I’m trying to get Baron Spencer to invest in my new venture. Making a purchase might put me on his radar.”
Baron Spencer was the billionaire CEO of Fiscal Heights Holdings and Emilia Spencer’s husband. Also, the biggest asshole to grace this planet.
“You might want to buy the entire room, then.” Tierney laughed. “I hear he’s hard to impress.”
“I’m not sure my apartment can accommodate thirteen pieces.” He glanced around, grinning. “Can I buy you one?”
“Sure. I had my eye on that one.” She pointed her martini in the direction of a gorgeous black-and-white painting of a man smoking. Emilia’s son, Tierney guessed. Vaughn Spencer.
Tucker’s lips quirked upward. “If I buy it, can I at least come and admire it on your wall?”
She shrugged. “I’ll need someone to hang it up, anyway.”
“Happy nailing, everyone.” Baron ‘Vicious’ Spencer himself slid between them, his icy, pale eyes trained on his wife’s art. “Just as long as we’re clear that nothing of this sort happens on my property.”
Tucker offered him his hand. “Mr. Spencer, good to finally meet you. I’m Tucker Reid.”
“I know who you are.” Spencer eyed his outreached hand like it was a warm bowl of shit, hands still linked behind his back. “I hear you came about your fortune because your ex’s husband gave you a million dollars to evacuate their lives permanently after your stint in prison.”
Tucker slipped his hand into his front pocket. “I didn’t peg you as a gossip, Mr. Spencer.”
Spencer’s lenient smile was so mocking she felt the secondhand humiliation all the way down to her little toes. “Get off my property, Mr. Reid, before I exercise my Second Amendment rights—and those index and thumb muscles.”
Tucker Reid sounded like a piece of work.
And that made him just perfect for Tierney’s plan.
She didn’t look for a boyfriend. She looked for a man corrupt enough to deserve a good beating, if Achilles decided to get territorial. This guy had served time in prison. He could hold his own.
“We’ll be out of your way,” Tierney chirped, throwing her dazzling smile at Mr. Spencer. As expected, it stirred absolutely nothing in him. He was a one-woman man, incapable of even noticing anyone else.
“You stay. I can take out the trash myself,” Spencer drawled.
“No need. I was on my way out, anyway. Send your wife my warmest regards.”
Tucker shrugged and followed Tierney to the elevators.
He knew when to cut his losses. Spencer wasn’t going to work with him.
His ex’s husband, Rhyland Coltridge, was as vengeful as he was influential.
He had given him a million dollars to sign away any claim on his mutual spawn with his ex, but the bastard failed to mention it wasn’t just his annoying kid he was giving up.
Tucker truly was cut off from polite society in every capacity now.
That he managed to sneak into this exhibition was a miracle in itself.
When a brawny man entered the elevator with Tucker and Tierney, the handsome man finally turned to his hookup. “You know this guy?”
“He’s my bodyguard,” she explained cryptically.
“Are you a big deal or something?” Tucker narrowed his eyes. Maybe tonight wasn’t a dud after all. If this woman was rich and influential, she could help him.
“Or something.” Tierney popped open a compact mirror she extracted from her bag and checked her makeup.
The trio entered a black Escalade. Tucker’s spirits lifted. Having her own driver was a positive sign. But when the vehicle stopped in front of a gothic-looking church in a crime-ridden neighborhood, he faltered.
If she was so rich and famous, how come she lived in this shithole?
But she was beautiful, and her body was killer. If nothing else, he’d get a good lay out of it.
She led him into an Irish pub and up a flight of narrow stairs into her apartment. The bodyguard slipped into the one-bedroom property without a sound. Tucker made a face.
“Can you lose this guy? I don’t want an audience.”
“Marco will be staying in the living room.” Tierney smiled sweetly. “Right, Marco?”
Tucker did not like this chick’s sense of humor. Too aggressive. But he wasn’t planning to stick around, anyway.
They slipped into the bedroom, and to his relief, she locked the door.
“I want you to be rough with me. Enough to hurt but not draw blood.” Her tone was businesslike. She shimmied out of her dress, unclasping her bracelet and placing it carefully on her nightstand. This woman was a little frightening.
No matter. He wasn’t going to marry her, just fuck her.
“Sure. Whatever.” He pushed off his clothes.
Tierney felt a pang of regret. He seemed too eager and too sloppy to be a good lover.
His first impression at the exhibition must’ve been a facade.
But she couldn’t afford to be picky. She wanted Achilles to know she intended to fuck men however she wanted and whenever she wanted—this was more than a one-night stand; it served as a lesson, too.
They met halfway across the small room, reaching for each other.
Tentative, lackluster kisses followed. He got hard between her thighs, and she pushed through the taste of revulsion in her mouth, shoving him onto her bed and straddling him.
She brushed her core against his erection, hoping the act would stir something in her.
When it didn’t, she grabbed his hands and put them on her throat.
“Cut my air supply. Only for a few seconds.”
She knew as well as he did that he couldn’t kill her. She had an armed bodyguard sitting in her living room.
Tucker squeezed her neck for dear life. Her eyes rolled, and she reverted to that blank place in her head.
Wetness gathered between her thighs as she ground against him faster, rolling her hips. He grunted, squeezing harder.
She moaned, but no sound came out because of how tight his grip was on her neck.
Bright lights.
Birds chirping.
Warmth.
Somewhere far.
And pretty.
Where bad memories didn’t have to be buried because they didn’t exist in the first place.
She blacked out, falling to the side of her bed. When she came to, Tucker was above her, nailing her to the mattress, his sweat dripping onto her face, scorching her eyes. Her mouth was dry, and she wasn’t sure if he was using a condom. A strangled sound tore out of her: half-laugh, half-sob.
Achilles was right. She was not equipped to be in a relationship, let alone have casual sex. She felt younger than her age and lost. Like her only way to feel any kind of control over what was happening was to accept pain and convince herself she chose it.
“Harder,” she growled in Tucker’s face. “I want you to leave marks.”