Chapter 5
Five
Sloane
The elevator doors close and I press my back against the wall, slide down the cold metal, and land on the floor with my knees pulled to my chest.
The red heel sits in my lap. One shoe. The other one is lying on the marble outside his penthouse because my hands couldn't stop shaking long enough to hold onto both, which feels about right for the trajectory of this evening.
I am wrecked. Every inch of me carries the evidence of a wicked night Father Augustine will be mortified to hear about in confessional this Sunday. And honestly, where would I even start?
The ache between my thighs pulses with every heartbeat, deep and unfamiliar.
Soreness flares through my body every time I shift my weight against the elevator floor.
His beard left sensitive patches along the insides of my thighs that sting when my skin presses together.
My lips feel swollen and bruised from hours of kissing that started gentle and turned desperate.
The man never slowed down long enough for me to catch my breath. But I'm not complaining.
I press my palm against my throat where his fingers held me, where the pressure of his grip felt less like restraint and more like a claim.
My pulse hammers so hard under my hand I can count the beats.
His hand on my throat should have destroyed me.
It should have sent me right back to that hallway at fifteen.
Instead it feels like the safest I've been since the night he knelt beside me all those years ago.
I don't know what to do with that information except sit on an elevator floor and try not to fall apart.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply. It's tempting to return to him. But how do I face my father when the truth comes out? Scratch that. What would kill me is if Massimo rejects me for who I am. I concealed my identity in plain sight once. But I don't stand a chance of pulling that off again.
I draw in a deep lungful of air.
His scent is everywhere. My skin, my dress, my hair. Woodsy and sharp, layered with whiskey and warm male skin. Ten years of loving his scent and now it's soaked into my pores so deep I don't think soap is going to cut it.
And I am not all that mad about it.
God, I have it bad for the man.
"Get it together, Whitmore." My voice bounces off the elevator walls and comes back sounding like a woman who has zero chance of getting it together anytime soon.
The floor numbers tick down on the display. Thirty-two. Thirty-one. Thirty.
I should go straight to the lobby, walk out, hail a cab, go home, and spend the next forty years pretending Massimo Santoro never put his mouth on me. That would be the smart move. The responsible, adult, non-delusional move.
My hand reaches out and hits the button for twenty-nine.
"Of course you did." I watch my own finger press the button like it belongs to someone else. "Because going home like a normal person after a one-night stand is apparently too much to ask of you, Whitmore."
The elevator slows, stops, and the doors slide open onto the Scarlet Thorn entry level.
Champagne and cologne and the fading bass from earlier tonight roll in on a wave of stale air.
The white marble floors gleam under dimmed chandeliers, empty and polished, the whole place quiet and waiting for tomorrow night's round of bad decisions.
I pull myself off the floor. My bare feet flinch against cold marble, the single red heel clutched in my hand by the strap.
I pad across the Scarlet Thorn floor in my wrinkled baby blue dress with sex hair and no makeup.
Everyone has either retired to their rooms or gone home. Even the hostesses have retired.
I've crossed this floor dozens of times.
Victory rolls pinned tight, winged liner sharp enough to cut glass, cherry lipstick fresh, red heels clicking against marble with every step.
The bartenders know my usual order. The hostesses always wave me through.
I am Sloane Whitmore, rockabilly queen, the five-foot blonde who walks into any room looking like a vintage pinup and dares anyone to tell me I don't belong.
The woman padding barefoot across this floor right now doesn't match a single version of Sloane Whitmore I've ever built.
The rolls are gone, the liner wiped clean, the lipstick stripped off hours ago.
Bare feet on cold marble, a dress that looks like it spent three hours balled up on someone's bedroom floor because it did, and the unmistakable flush of a woman who just lost her virginity.
This is what I look like without the armor.
This is what being seen looks like the morning after.
I spent eleven years building a fortress so nobody could see the girl underneath, and tonight I stripped it all off for one man, and now I'm walking through my territory completely exposed and the world hasn't ended.
I'm not sure if that's progress or just proof that four AM has no standards.
"Quite a look you have going for you tonight, Whitmore," I mutter to myself. "You're really nailing it."
The dark glass of the bar's mirrored backsplash catches my reflection as I pass, and my steps slow before I can stop them.
Freckles and wide blue eyes and swollen lips stare back at me from a face I barely recognize without the architecture of liner and lipstick to give it structure.
I look wrecked. I look young. I look like a woman who just handed a stranger every piece of herself and walked away with nothing.
I'm either beautiful or a devastating mess. I'm leaning toward the latter for sure.
I pull my eyes from the mirror and keep moving, past the empty velvet booths, past the dark dance floor, toward the service corridor that connects to the private levels.
I've been coming here long enough to know the back ways, the quiet routes the staff uses when they don't want to be seen.
The corridor narrows and the walls shift from polished marble to matte black as I climb a short staircase.
The air grows warmer, thicker, heavy with lingering candle wax and roses.
The red door stands at the end of a hallway so dark the walls feel like they're closing in.
Gold handles catch faint candlelight from iron sconces, flames throwing shadows that jump across the floor ahead of me.
My bare feet make no sound on the carpet, which gives the whole walk a creepy, ceremonial vibe.
I pause outside the door and take a deep breath.
Father Augustine will never hear about tonight.
But I need someone to hear my thoughts and deepest desires.
Even if they never stand a chance of coming true.
I just need to put them out there. Because if I take this feeling home and lock it behind the armor and the liner and the lipstick and pretend it never happened, I will suffocate on it. Some truths are too big to swallow.
With that in mind, I push the door to Scarlet Thorn's wish room open and step inside.
The warmth cocoons me first. After all that cold marble the heat from the candles melts through the chill I didn't realize I'd been carrying since the elevator, loosening the tension across my shoulders.
The walls are painted black with scarlet swirls that shift in the candlelight, and a velvet pedestal stands in the center of the small room with the wish box on top.
Dark wood and gold filigree, ornate and heavy.
Red envelopes and a fountain pen rest beside it on a narrow table, alongside note cards stacked at the edge.
My toes curl into the black carpet, soft and warm against my frozen feet. His scent still clings to my skin, mixing with melted wax and old roses, and if anyone walked in right now they'd know exactly what I did tonight just from the smell of me.
I press my palm over my suddenly quivering stomach.
I know there's a chance Massimo will read the words I am about to write and maybe deep down that's why I'm doing this.
I'm not blind to the possibility. But I'm also doing it so I don't have to live with my emotions bottled up for the rest of my life.
Plus I'm saving Father Augustine from fainting in the confessional. Win-win.
I set the shoe on the floor and pick up the fountain pen. The weight of it is solid in my fingers, heavier than the cheap ballpoints I use at the boutique, and I pull a note card and a red envelope from the stacks. The paper is thick, textured, and unscented.
My hand stills over the paper.
I need to put this feeling somewhere because I can't suppress it, and it's too real to pretend it didn't happen. If I don't write it down and leave it in this room, I'm going to choke on it before the sun comes up.
I uncap the pen, set the nib against the paper, lift it, set it down again. My hand is shaking and the nib leaves a small dot of ink on the surface that bleeds outward in a tiny dark bloom.
"Just write it, Sloane."
I close my eyes. Pull a breath deep into my lungs. Open my eyes.
The scratch of the pen against thick paper and my own unsteady breathing are the only sounds in the room. I write fast because thinking too long will kill my nerve.
I wish the man who touched me tonight could be mine. He made me feel like I was more than a last name, more than my father's plans, more than invisible. I know I can't keep him. But I wish I could. I just needed someone to know this.
I pause.
I put the pen back on the paper and add one last thing.
-SW
A weight lifts from my chest. A tear lands on the red paper before I can catch it, hitting the wet ink and blurring the edges of my words.
Then another falls, and another, dropping onto the paper in dark spots that soak through the fibers and warp the surface.
I let it happen. The wish is a mess. I'm a mess. At least we match.
The letters slant harder than usual, my hand unsteady, the tail of the W trailing sideways. I press the pen down on the initials and hold it there until the period bleeds a dark circle into the paper.