TWENTY
I’d seen women seduce before – seen them play at it, wield it like a weapon or a shield, depending on the kind of poison in front of them.
But Paula DeLuca didn’t seduce.
She just was.
She bent forward at the table as if unaware of the effect – the delicate curve of her cleavage, the dip of red fabric against heat-kissed skin. But I couldn’t ignore it. I felt it searing through every buttoned-up instinct in me.
And fuck me if it didn’t make me want to rip into it.
I took a slow sip from my bottle. Watched her fingers as she toyed with the label of her bottle with casual grace. She thought she was composed. Maybe even believed it. But I’d been watching her all night – since before she stumbled back into the lounge in a different dress.
Maybe that was what made me say it aloud – the fragments of my past. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe the way she looked at me like she actually wanted to hear the truth, not decorate it with sympathy.
I’d never told anyone my story. Just Vinnie and the therapist. And yet, it had unravelled before I could stop it.
What surprised me more was her reaction.
She didn’t cringe. Didn’t tilt her head with that pitying softness people get when they don’t know what to do with someone else’s pain.
She just listened. As though she’d seen similar shadows and didn’t need to name them to understand.
That kind of silence was unravelling me more than a thousand sorrys ever could.
What would’ve Scarlett done? She’d been the thread holding me together. But Paula… she saw me. And for a moment, I couldn’t tell whose name my soul answered to. Scarlett embraced my shadows. But this woman saw through them – and didn’t recoil.
And what happened when Scarlett had enough? Hell, we clearly weren’t exclusive.
She existed in the dark, in stolen moments and whispered promises when we pretended we weren’t who we were.
She trusted me enough to let me guide her into the darkness, but she didn’t truly know me.
Not Cain. Not the man sitting here, watching the woman he worked with across the table as if she were dessert.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was losing control.
Paula repositioned herself in her chair, her elbow resting on the table as she traced the rim of it with a finger.
I should have been focused on the conversation, on the work we were supposed to be doing, but all I could think about was how dangerously close this woman was to splitting me open, despite Scarlett’s brand on my soul.
‘You’re quiet,’ she said, her voice pulling me from my thoughts.
I cleared my throat, settled back in my chair. ‘Just thinking.’
She angled her head, a small smile playing on her lips. ‘Should I be annoyed or worried?’
‘Both, maybe,’ I said with a smirk I couldn’t keep from spreading.
Her laugh was soft, but it sent a ripple of heat through me, too close to the sound Scarlett had made when I whispered against her neck.
‘Let me guess,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘You’re overthinking that scene I wrote last.’
I chuckled this time, dragging a hand through my hair to conceal the lie. ‘Guilty.’
Her smile faltered, uncertainty flashing across her face. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s intense,’ I said, thinking about the details. ‘Maybe too intense.’ – it was perfect, but I needed a cover.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, the green-blue so dark in the low light they might as well have been onyx-black. ‘Too intense for who? The readers? Or you?’
The challenge in her voice struck a nerve with irritation and thrill in equal parts, but I masked whatever stirred inside me.
‘It’s not about me. I’m just saying it might need a lighter touch. Something to balance the rawness.’
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she sat straight in her chair. ‘D’Angelo,’ she started, as always when she was slightly peeved. Damn, I loved that.
‘The characters aren’t in a place for softness. They’re broken. The intensity is the point – it’s what they need to feel alive again.’
The words resonated in me more than they should have. Not because I disagreed, but because I understood them too well.
I thought of Scarlett again – how she’d let me take her apart without question. She hadn’t been giving herself to me; she had been vanishing into the chaos we’d created. But even as I held her in my mind, it was Paula I was watching now – Paula, who didn’t vanish. Paula, who faced the chaos.
I’d met my masked beauty as Ghost; someone faceless, someone who didn’t carry the weight of Cain D’Angelo’s failures and sins.
The mask had given me the freedom to act on the darker thoughts I’d kept buried, to lose myself in a version of me I hadn’t fully understood.
With Scarlett, I had been able to push the boundaries, giving in to the part of me that had craved not just intimacy but total surrender.
And she’d let me. She hadn’t just allowed my demons; she had embraced them.
Fuck, she had fed them, had let them grow until they’d burned through every rational thought.
With anyone else, it would have been too much; too cruel, too reckless. But she’d never asked me to stop.
Paula was right: sometimes intensity was the only thing keeping one alive. Sometimes, one didn’t need tenderness or comfort. One needed the pain to remind them that they could still feel.
The characters had needed that raw, brutal release to feel alive again, just like I had needed Scarlett.
But the parallel twisted something inside me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Because while the characters in our book might find redemption in their desperation, I wasn’t sure I ever could.
As her words took root in me, for a moment, I couldn’t find a response.
Because I wasn’t just thinking about the characters any more.
I was thinking about her. About the way she spoke with such certainty, as if she wasn’t just creating those scenes but living them, pulling the chaos and desperation straight from her own soul.
Where did that inspiration come from? Was she, like me, hiding pieces of herself in the shadows of her writing? Was she channelling her pain, the damage, into these stories the same way I did with Scarlett?
The possibility twisted deep inside me. What if she was like me? What if she needed those intense moments, that raw, visceral escape, to quiet the noise in her head?
The thought was both terrifying and intoxicating. Was she, in the privacy of her own time, seeking the same release, the same fleeting sense of control that I chased with Scarlett? And if so… could she find the same solace in me, as I have found in her?
Something clamped down on my lungs at the surge of forbidden thoughts – the sudden, aching desire to cross the line, to see what it would be like to touch her, to bind her, to bruise her in a way she would like. To know her in ways I wasn’t sure I deserved.
I’d already started letting Scarlett go. But Paula was still here.
My gaze lingered on her lips for just a second too long, my mind betraying me with images I had no right to conjure.
I shook my head, dragging myself back to reality, forcing the thought away before it could spread and infect.
This was Paula. My assistant, my equal in creation – not someone I could allow myself to ruin. Not someone I could afford to lose.
The change in Paula was subtle at first, but then the glaze over her eyes became unmistakable. Her focus faltered, her movements slowing as though the world around her had dulled.
She tilted slightly to the side, blinking rapidly. My hand shot out, catching her shoulder to steady her.
‘Paula?’ I tried, keeping my voice calm even as alarm bells rose at the back of my mind.
I clocked the bottle. It couldn’t have been the beer – she’d barely drunk it.
My gut twisted with unease, my instincts screaming that something was wrong.
Her lids fluttered in slow motion, her brow knitting in confusion as she gripped the edge of the table.
‘I… I don’t feel right,’ she murmured, her voice soft and slightly slurred. Her gaze swept the tabletop, her frown tightening.
My pulse kicked into overdrive. I snatched the beer bottle from beneath her and lifted it to my nose. The scent was ordinary – just hops and barley. Nothing bitter or metal, no telltale signs of tampering. But the way she started swaying, her lips parting slightly as if struggling to form words—
This wasn’t tiredness or the alcohol.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, bracing closer, my tone harsher than intended.
She closed her eyes, fingers pressing to her temple. And then, almost in a whisper, she said, ‘I think… I’ve been roofied.’
All my senses sprung to high alert. My fingers dug into the glass that creaked under the pressure, as my gaze combed over the faces, masked and unmasked.
Vinnie. He brought the drinks. Was this a fucking joke?
A surge of irritation boiled up to the surface with the idea of him being careless, or worse, responsible. But I shook it off just as quickly.
That wasn’t Vinnie. It couldn’t have been. If he wanted to push Paula and me over the edge, he wouldn’t resort to this.
My mind darted to the two male hosts who’d approached Paula when she walked in, the way they’d circled her like wolves before retreating under her glare. I wanted to find them, to demand answers, to ensure they never got near her again. But I wasn’t sure it had been them.
‘How do you know?’ I asked carefully, with a strained mix of anger and concern as I reached my other hand over the table to steady her with both.
Her gaze slid to mine, and for the first time that evening, I saw something unfiltered and vulnerable behind her usual stoicism.
‘My ex,’ she said quietly. ‘He used to… make me take things. When I told him no.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I know how it feels.’
She didn’t look at me. And I didn’t ask further.
Because I saw red.