Chapter 16
“You’re not listening to me.” Kara stares down at the man lounging up against the side of his own crystalline custom hot tub. A paradise of his own making.
He annoys her. He looks good while he annoys her.
“I am,” Dieter replies simply, leaning his head back, eyes hidden behind his rose-gold aviators, reflecting Kara back like mirrors. She imagines his eyes are closed and he’s thinking she’s a rather offensive gnat that just won’t stop buzzing in his ear. Tough shit, cookie.
“If you are, you’re not hearing me.” She paces back and forth across the concrete, hands on her hips. “The situation is heating up. Didn’t you see the news? There’s another witness-”
“I bet Nick is loving that.” Airy, disturbingly unconcerned.
Nick is probably underwater with Paxton Brooker chaos now, knowing yet another person is coming forward to speak against his trouble-ridden client. Things look even worse, considering the mysterious murder of X, the original witness.
Maybe he’s glad; he’s got to be making a small fortune billing hours from Paxton for all these cases. Especially considering he got Paxton free of the Debra Mills allegations, the rat bastard. He fucking snaked that thing from Kara…
Her exasperation is unending. “Dieter, I know you have a brain, use it. People are still wondering about your involvement in this torture case. I have detectives asking me to provide more documents about your financials. I’ve had to call your accountant - who was unhelpful by the way - and your other legal hack, Tate Reggison, who conveniently didn’t have some files and-”
“ Blah blah. Sounds like you have it under control. How about you stop complaining about troubles that may or may not occur because of good old Paxton and get in this hot tub with me. I’m bored .” Never a good sign. He’s unkind when he’s bored.
“I have nothing to swim in,” Kara replies sternly, trying to remain in control. She cannot allow him to beat her in this matter. He’s a master at diverting the narrative to whatever he wishes it to be, as she’s so learned. Trying to channel Gale, Kara continues boldly, “Dieter, I need you to be serious -”
He talks over her as if she hasn’t even spoken. “Go up to my mother’s room and pick something out of her drawers or her damn closet. She’ll never know. She rarely visits the States anymore. Probably buried in a fucking mountain of coke in Dublin and rugged Irish callboys...”
Irritation is red hot in her guts, listening to him grumble. The last thing Kara wants to do is rifle through that woman’s belongings while those piercing green eyes stare down at her with stony silence. As a once internationally famous model, Saoirse Bittinger’s intense portraits consume space on her bedroom walls. A beautiful woman; Kara can see so much of her in Dieter. But also a woman with eyes so empty Kara can’t imagine any sort of affection there.
Dieter had once told Kara that he hadn’t even known his mother was his mother for years as a young boy because she was never home and let the staff ‘deal with him’. He imagined she was a sister of his because it wasn’t like she ever said, ‘call me mom’. When she was in their family home, she was like a child herself; fickle, lost in cocaine, and vacantly spoiled.
“I’m not wearing your mother’s things, even if she doesn’t want them anymore.”
He flicks water at her with a scoff. Dieter goes silent and returns to ignoring her presence, looking like some form of a dreamy model himself. It’s almost painful to look at him, knowing where his wicked, horrible mouth has been.
…and knowing that Kara wouldn’t entirely be opposed if he wanted her again, no matter how wrong it is. Her client , of all people…
Wanting to slip her mind away from the filthy imaginings that suddenly course through her thoughts, Kara demands, “How is this a nonissue in your brain? What am I missing? Aren’t you worried Paxton and Nicholas are going to find some way to draw the attention back on you? What if they try to pin part of the blame on you because you fund Paxton-”
With a laborious sigh of the mentally taxed, Dieter gets out of the steaming hot tub, water coursing down his sleek, athletic frame in a way that shouldn’t be allowed to be so enticing. With casual appeal, he wraps a towel around his waist, strolling towards the house. “No. But clearly, you are. Get over that.”
Kara pauses, watching him go, feeling her blood pressure spike alongside her heart rate. He’s walking away from a conversation, changing the scenery; he expects her to follow, and he will once again try to control the narrative.
A decisive talent of his. Gale always warned her about this little tactic of his.
“We’re boating on Friday this week,” he calls over his shoulder to her as he escapes. “That dubiously consensual prick you seem to like is attending.” There’s a sharp grin on his mouth. “Thought you’d like that.” Carelessly, he pitter patters to the main hall, to the stairs, leaving a trail of water for Maria to clean.
“Nick is going on your boat?” Kara splutters as she follows after him. “He never goes on your boat.”
“I always invite him. This time, he said yes .” He gives her a sly look as he pauses at the foot of the stairs. “Do you think it’s because he misses you? Or is it because he has business with Gale? Thoughts to consider.”
Kara scowls as she avoids stepping in his watery mess. He’s on his way to his room to change out of his swim trunks and clearly, he’s changed the subject on her. “Don’t distract me from the fact that we have bigger fish to fry than Nicholas going on your boat. What about the situation with Paxton-”
He groans with exasperation and doesn’t reply. Dieter walks up the grand bridal staircase slowly, as if he has all the time in the world. He knows she’s watching.
Calling after him, Kara says with exasperation, “Where are you going? Am I just to twiddle my thumbs and wait on you to be decent?”
At the top of the stairs, Dieter tilts his head slightly, giving him a hint of a boyish cast, charming and seemingly unattainable all at once. “There’s no sense in that, now is there, chickadee? Come on up and continue bitching at me; I’m not shy.”
Good God.
“Wretched man,” she whispers under her breath.
It isn’t that she hasn’t been in his room plenty of times before; she has. But not when he’s clearly about to change into something less wet.
Standing in the doorway of his grand master bedroom, Kara stands with her hands on her hips, eyes pointed up at the ceiling. She doesn’t hear him undressing in his walk-in closet, so she says with a gesture, “Could you get on with it- oh -”
Without warning, he’s standing in front of her, the warmth of him radiating onto her, distracting Kara from staring upwards. She meets his gaze and wishes she hadn’t. Pools of beautiful green, alight with mischievous fire.
He steps up close to her in that charming manner of his, getting too close, using his presence to draw her in. The man knows his effect on women. It’s a literal problem that Kara has been battling against in the months since she met him.
Voice wavering, Kara utters, “Do you play these games with Gale?”
“I play games with different people. For different reasons.” His eyes are amused at her expense. Eyes of the clearest green, the prettiest of shades that Kara has ever seen. Clearly, a gift from his ice queen mother, if all the intense portraits she’s seen are anything to go by.
Kara finds herself taking a step back, guarded. She can’t get sucked into his gravity again. She can’t . “I don’t like games-”
He takes a step after her, all predator and prey. Voice silky as it brushes against her skin. “That’s not what I heard.”
He leans in slowly, eyes boring intently into hers as he does so. She knows she should look away. She knows she needs to step back and leave this room, but a part of her can’t. She wants to know what it's like, she’s always been drawn to him, even when repulsed.
Kara can taste her heart in her throat, blood pulsing in her head. Her mind is blanking stupidly and she can’t form a single word of excuse when his mouth finds hers.
His kiss isn’t domineering or aggressive. He doesn’t force it upon her, like something out of a bodice ripper. No, his soft kiss is an invitation, a taste, something to draw a woman in and leave her wishing he had taken more.
Kara resents his absence when he pulls back with a satisfied sigh. His nose brushes her cheek, a ghost of a touch as he whispers, “Was that so bad?”
She doesn’t answer, feeling her heart trembling. She wants to kiss him again, but she’ll be damned if she allows him to know that.
His kiss is a party drug and Kara does not want to become an addict. She averts her face, pretends to be unimpressed-
It has the opposite effect.
He drops his wet swimming trunks to the floor, where they splat as loudly as Kara’s heart. Her face heats and she studiously doesn’t look down, even as he cups her face again. “Play with me, chickadee?” Teasing, soft, and sexy. “ Please .” Oh, the soft silk of his tone. He touches a stray wave in her hair gently, drawing her attention to his face once more.
She wishes she didn’t make eye contact.
Those eyes consume every thought in her skull, just before he kisses her again. And again, leaving her breathless with want, a tightening in her core as she feels desire build. He’s naked. She’s fully clothed. A different sort of power play, giving her the edge over him.
It feels calculated. In fact, she knows it is. It’s why she also knows she doesn’t have an edge at all. It’s an illusion.
“Stop it,” she whispers as he places her trembling hand against his bare chest. She can feel his heart and she wants to squeeze it between her fingers. “We’re not doing this.”
“You’re not the sort of girl to be afraid.” He keeps her hand against his heart. A steady thump against her palm, telling her he’s alive. The way he maintains control and still appears to submit boggles the mind. “Why are you afraid of me?”
Why indeed? Perhaps it’s the way he makes her feel like she’s never quite in control, that she never quite has level footing…
It’s the way he baits her with the concept of submission, but behind the smoke and mirrors he’s orchestrating it all with ease.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Kara tells him. “I just don’t trust you.” Everyone dances to his tune, one way or another. The art of it is in thwarting him, which Kara tries her best to do. “Don’t push me, Dieter.”
He makes a face and allows her hand to drop from his body. “Fine. Ruin my fun.”
Snarling at him, “Would you just put some clothes on, dammit? Dieter-”
Strolling across the room in the buff, he shamelessly starts pulling some clothes on. “Alright. You don’t want to play that type of game. But we are going to play something. We’ll go bowling instead, come on now.” As soon as he’s clothed in that quietly rich but understated way of his, he drags her to the front door.
“Bowling?” Kara splutters in. “Have you lost your mind?” Moments ago, he’d been rubbing up on her naked like some sort of alley cat in heat. Now he wants to bowl?
He grins winningly. “I promise, you’ll have fun.”
It feels like a date, but he’s not wrong.
It turns out to be a great time and Kara doesn’t know what to do with that fact. When Dieter puts his mind to it, he’s the most charming, exciting man she’s ever been around.
…and that’s probably dangerous.
By the time Kara gets home, it’s late. Despite her rather pleasant evening with Dieter, she can’t help but find her mind drawn back to her earlier concerns of the day. The only man who takes such things seriously is Nick it seems.
So, she calls him, because why not? They made a truce, didn’t they? A pact to be cordial? She wants to talk business. “Hey. Sorry about the late hour, but…figured I’d call after I saw the news the other day. About Paxton.”
“Calling to gloat? I find myself not in the mood, Kara.” Nick sounds carefully bored, as if he doesn’t care that she’s called him. He hides his real feelings all too well. “I don’t have much to tell you on the matter either if you’re snooping.”
“Good for you, Prince Charming,” Kara replies, matching his grumpy vibe. “I actually have a lot to say on the matter.” She takes a moment to calm down, to ease up on the sass. She doesn’t want to start them off on the wrong foot again. “Look. I called because I have concerns about it. It seems fishy to me.”
“ Hm . How novel.”
“You don’t agree?” Kara asks in disbelief. “There’s something off. The witness referred to the Room as the Torture House. That sounded wrong to me. No one involved would call it that. It seems sensationalized.”
“Wait a moment. Are you actually calling me to discuss the possible innocence of my client?” Nick laughs here, just a bit, making her heart flip happily. “Miracles do exist after all.”
“ Whoa . I never said Brooker was innocent. I just said this new witness seems too good to be true. As if someone is trying to put the lid on this too soon, if you catch my meaning.” Someone is trying to shut the case down- and fast. A scapegoat, if one were to imagine. “When I brought it up to Dieter-”
Nick sucks in air harshly between his teeth. “You did not bring this up to Dieter.”
Why wouldn’t she? “I did. He’s been a shit about it, go figure. Which is why I’m talking to you, because you’re the only sensible man I know in all this-”
He groans as if she’s done something utterly stupid. “Listen. You want my professional opinion? You need to back away from this situation. If Dieter doesn’t care about it, leave it be. It’s not your business, not your case, and I’m telling you, you don’t want it to be .”
While Kara has the sense that Nick has always been a lawyer in it for the dough, not the justice, Kara isn’t built that way. “I feel personally invested to see this thing through. It started with the Debra Mills case and now it’s become this ugly mess. I want the real perp to be prosecuted, not freaking Paxton Brooker if he isn’t the man for it. There’s just something that isn’t making sense…”
“When you’ve done this job as long as I have, you’ll learn that a lot of things don’t make sense. You’ll also learn that justice isn’t always just.” Nick says dryly, as if she’s not seeing the whole picture. Maybe she isn’t. There’s something bitter in his tone. “Not all evil will face criminal punishment, Kara. Even though I know you’d love to take every bad man and claw them to bits yourself…”
As he’s speaking, Kara paces past her window, her heart jolting up into her throat. There, in the shadows, is that man . Looking up at her, something held to his ear, as if listening to-
Anger and unease flash in her chest. This fucking creeper, what is he doing? She’s going to call Ray this time, she’s going to report him.
“Hold on, Nick. There’s a freaking nutjob outside my window again-”
“What nutjob? And what do you mean, again ?” Nick’s tone is confused. “What are you talking about?”
“My stalker.” She flicks the man off through the window and says, “I have to call the police, Nick, I’ll call you ba-”
Just then, as soon as the words are out of her mouth, the creep slowly steps backward, melting into the alleyway, vanishing. A lurking menace, there and then gone. Kara swallows thickly, hair prickling on the back of her neck. What just happened? Why did he just leave?
“Kara? Kara, do you need me to come over-”
She’s never had Nicholas Havenwood-Calais over to her home and she’s not about to start now. It’s a boundary she’s never crossed, a lingering sense of danger from what she knows he’s capable of. He once took grievous advantage of her, many months ago, and Kara isn’t about to forget that fact.
He’s capable of dark things…but how dark? She doesn’t know.
“Weird.” Kara frowns at the shadows where the watcher in the night had just been. “He’s gone. As soon as I told you I was going to call the cops. He touched something at his ear.”
There’s a frustrated sound on the other side of the phone. “Are you bugged? Is someone spying on you?”
“Don’t give me more nightmare fuel, I have enough of that in my life,” Kara says without much mirth. Her past provides enough horrors for countless eternities.
After a moment, Nick says, “You should stop digging into this case. You’re going to get wrapped up in something you really want no part of.”
The sound of it rings wrong. Kara’s brow shifts. Why does he keep warning her off this? Is her worst nightmare true? Is he involved, just trying to keep her nose out of it? “Is that a hidden threat?”
“No.” He sounds resigned and suddenly very tired. “It’s a strong suggestion. And a warning. Someone is watching what you’re digging into. And they probably aren’t good people, Kara.”
The line goes dead in Kara’s hand, leaving her staring out into the dark, wondering what dangers are lurking, wrapped around this case regarding Paxton Brooker and The Room…and maybe Nicholas Havenwood-Calais.