King of New York (16 page)

“I see that your
bluff was not cowardice after all. I would like to congratulate you, Chad. You
play a very good game; I can’t fault you. I have to give credit where it is due,
and you, my love, are deserving of such credit.”

She calmly
reveals her cards. The hand is virtually impossible. He squints his eyes as her
hand becomes clearer to him. Sierra has a royal flush. The cards almost
illuminate as they stare back at him. She reveals an ace of diamonds, king of
diamonds, queen of diamonds, jack of diamonds and, finally, the ten of
diamonds. Frustrated and defeated laughter leaves his mouth instinctively.

“I congratulate
you for your efforts … in losing. The warrior fails at his conquest but the
lioness still loves him.”

She leans over
the table and kisses him; reluctantly, he kisses her back. His eyes admire as
well as hate the woman he loves.

“You would think
we were playing for billions, the way in which you were so serious, Mr Perry.”

He tries to
downplay his defeat, but he feels that his male ego has been badly bruised. She
does a victory dance and tells him she will be heading to Fifth Avenue when the
sun rises for some victory shopping with his money. She tells him that she will
buy him a consolatory gift on her way back. He pretends not to hear and blasts
some soft rock as she disappears into the bedroom.

CHAPTER 12

It’s early evening, and Chad is
half asleep at Sierra’s new home when she returns from her shopping spree
looking noticeably shaken. He rushes up from the couch to comfort her but she
roughly pulls away from him. He had noticed that her behaviour was sometimes
erratic. He had pushed it aside and never questioned it as he felt it was to do
with her age. But today he needs to know why.

“Why are you so
cold sometimes, Sierra? You remind me of myself when you act like that. Let me
heal your broken heart, princess.”

Chad stares at
her intensely, looking for a means to answer his question through her body
language. But she doesn’t flinch. She remains silent and stares at the floor.
Chad senses a deep torment within her. She tries to hide it but he knows that
hurt dwells in her heart.

He sees the tears that
fall down her pale face. He touches her shoulder and he feels her whole body
quaking with hurt. Something tugs at his heartstrings as he watches her tears
fall. Everything in him wishes to console her, but he knows he has to let her
speak. He knows that the words are elusive for her as she struggles to find
them.

“Have you ever felt
like you loved someone so badly that you thought you’d die if they died? So
much so that the more they hurt you the more you believe you are falling deeper
in love with them?”

Chad nods, but the
word love itself was never a part of his vocabulary until he met Sierra, so he doesn’t
really know what she means.

“Well I have.
Well at least I thought I did due to my young age and naivety!”

She stops
talking and stares at the floor. A single tear drops.

“Open up to me,
my love; tell me the things that plague your heart, Sierra.” His blue eyes
darken with a desire to know what pains her.

The moment is
poignant with pain and beauty. For the first time she bears a hard exterior and
also shows her vulnerability. It’s a beautiful sight for Chad as he sees her
heart through all her pain. She resembles a child as she sits before him, bared
not in flesh but in all that she is. He touches her once more. Her body is cold
like the winters of Siberia, but her eyes are warm. Sierra smiles crookedly at
him and he returns her smile. He senses her discomfort.

“You do not have
to tell me any more if you don’t want to, Sierra.”

She gently
touches his lips with her finger and motions him to remain quiet. “I want to,
Chad. I think you deserve to know all about my past, no matter how painful it
is. You have told me all the bad about you, so it’s time I tell you mine too.”

He looks at her
lovingly and nods his head.

“His name was
Tom, Tom Winters: the most charming boy in London. I met him while at Cambridge
University. From the moment our eyes met I knew I wanted him to be mine. He had
a hidden danger in his blue eyes that drew me into him, just like yours do. His
words could make a woman’s panties fall off even if they were attached with
superglue.”

Feeling a little
jealous and humoured at the “superglue” comment, Chad makes a sly remark. “Well
I guess I’m not good-looking, eh?” He winks at her to ease the tension.

“Believe me you
are better-looking than he was, but it was the danger in him that I lusted
after. His deep-blue eyes had a way of making danger look so cool and
desirable.”

Chad laughs
happily at her compliment about his looks. “That’s what I like to hear. I was
beginning to wonder if I had lost my looks, because in no way can a British boy
surpass the looks and charm of the one and only Chad Perry of New York City.”

They both laugh
at his silly vanity.

Suddenly the
mood changes as Chad once again notices the scar on Sierra’s face. “Did he give
you the cut under your eye?”

Chad watches as Sierra
softly touches the scar instinctively. He asks once more with more authority in
his voice.

“Did that son of
a bitch give you that fucking scar on your face, Sierra?”

She nods and
begins to explain how it happened.

“I got this scar
the first and only time he put his hands on me. I had gone to visit him at his
flat next to the university. We spoke for a while before he went to the kitchen
to prepare me some food. However, he must have forgotten his phone because he
never leaves it near me. I paid no attention to it as I skipped through the TV
channels. Suddenly I felt a vibration and I looked down and saw a text from a female.
She had sent him a naked photo saying that she was waiting for him to fuck her
the way he had done the previous night.”

Chad looks at
her wearily.

“I think I
understand where you are going with this. The ironic thing is that I was just
like the man you speak of until I met you. Don’t get me wrong, I never
physically abused a woman but I know that mentally I caused havoc in the hearts
of dozens. That’s the reason why it hurts me as you say these things.” Chad
looks at her with regret in his ice-cold eyes.

“The more a
woman would love me, the more I would abuse her heart. Using her for the
pleasure between her legs, because it was the only thing that kept me from
going insane when my demons appeared. I was a heartbreaker and it made me
happy. It made me happy to know that, just like my mother and father, I too had
become incapable of showing or giving love. It made me happy, until now. Now I
am filled with profound regret.”

The silence is
airy as they both stare at one another with pain in their eyes. He tells her to
continue and tell him what Tom Winters did to her.

“I confronted
him about the text. He appeared intoxicated with rage and hate as I questioned
him relentlessly. Without warning, he slammed me against the wall as if I were
not a being but a thing. I felt the blood gush from my head, my lips and my
nose. It was warm and hot at the same time. I screamed, begged and pleaded with
him to stop but he wouldn’t. At that moment I believed that Satan himself had
entered him. I was his rag doll and he beat me to a pulp until I could no longer
beg for his mercy. The son of a bitch didn’t even have the decency to take me
to a hospital afterwards. He left me not only physically broken but mentally.
In that moment I knew what it felt like to be heartbroken, not because I loved
him but because I knew he’d never loved me.”

Sierra’s hot
tears fall on Chad’s masculine hands that are now wrapped up into a fist. His
blood boils as her tears fall. Rage encapsulates him and he wants to seek
revenge on the man that had broken his woman’s heart in the worst possible way.
Chad remains quiet as she continues to speak.

“It was then
that I realised it was never love that I felt for him, I liked him, but it
wasn’t love. I felt hate, pure unadulterated hate. Revenge became what I sought.
The bastard had to pay for all he had done to me; all the lies, the cheating, the
mental and – finally – physical abuse he’d put me through had to be avenged. I
had to make him suffer. He needed to feel the wrath of my pain.”

The young and
naïve Sierra is no longer present as he sees a cold and almost heartless woman
stand before him. A smile creeps across Chad’s face as he hears her speak of
revenge: possibly his favourite word, other than money. His blue eyes glisten
with wickedness as he anticipates the details of Sierra’s sweet revenge.

“So tell me.
What did you do, Sierra? What did you do, baby?”

He watches Sierra
as she looks at him hesitantly, anxious that he might be somewhat troubled by
the darker side of her actions.

“Tell me, baby,”
he says softly in his husky voice. He seduces her into a confession.

“I killed him.”

Chad is silent
and in utter shock. His blue eyes darken with confusion. Can the beautiful
innocent-looking lady before him truly be capable of murder? He looks at the
ceiling, almost as if he wishes for it to reveal the answers to the questions
in his mind.

“You … you ...
what?”

Chad’s voice is
slightly choked with disbelief. Uncertain of Sierra’s answer, he looks to the
floor and wishes it would swallow her words.

“I said I killed
him, Chad. I killed all that lay before him. You see, my father is very
influential, and as the youngest and only daughter of the Malcolm family I
always got what I wanted. Do you know what they say about money and power with
regards to the Malcolm family? They say the Malcolms have old and new money,
plus future money, so, of course, power is inevitable. Even though his family
were also influential, they were to a lesser degree than my family. My father
was not always the clean-cut man that he is today. He has connections to things
and people that are frightful to me. It wasn’t until I told him what Tom
Winters had done to me that I saw the fearsome man that he truly was.
Underneath his skinny and soft exterior was a man that was also a beast. And
the beast struck on that fateful winter’s evening, Tom met a very chilly end.”

Chad hears
profound sadness in her voice. “Is he dead, Sierra? Did you have him killed?”

“I have been
running away from my past since. No one in my family knows what happened,
except my father. It was only him that was keeping me sane. But I could no
longer take the guilt, so I decided to come to New York. Sometimes I used to
see eyes that resembled his, staring at me from afar as if they were plotting
revenge. But I knew they could not be his because my father had had him taken
care of.

“So if I am cold
to you, Chad, I am sorry. But sometimes you remind me of Tom Winters and it
frightens me so I pull back, just to make sure it is you and not him that I am
with.”

Chad looks at
her enquiringly but does not ask any questions.

“Well, my love,
I am certainly not Tom and I’m glad that son of bitch got what he deserved. Now
come here and let me make sweet love to you. You deserve the best of me tonight
because you have shown me the best in you.”

The best of
Sierra in the mind of Chad Perry is her ability to hide the darkness within her,
the fact that she may have had her ex murdered but still carries herself like
nothing had happened. She reminds him of someone he knows and he smiles at the
acknowledgement.

He knows that she is hot
with desire as he stares at her with lust in his deep-blue eyes, sensing her
vulnerability and need for him.

He tells her to drive
them to his place.

****

He takes her to the forbidden room and
tells her to tell him how she feels.

“As you know I
have never given my all to a man before, apart from you, Chad. Whenever you
touch me I forget all that there is. You’ve got me needing and wanting you like
the air I breathe. I crave your touch, the desire of your breath on my skin and
your cock deep within my walls. It’s like you take away all my pain and worries
when you’re inside me. What is it that you’ve done to me, Chad? Why is it that
I cannot do without your lovemaking? The pain and torture you put my body
through in this room is exquisite.”

Chad Perry’s
blue eyes ignite with passion and glee as the words leave Sierra’s lips. “So
you like being my sex subject as I have my dirty way with you? You like when
I’m in control and make you beg for it. Is that what you’re telling me,
Sierra?”

“Yes,” she
replies seductively.

Her smoky brown
eyes are sultry with seduction. Slowly and sexily she stands above him, her
body is womanly with its slim curves. Sierra’s slim but curvy frame plays havoc
with his senses. She tells him to kill the lights and let the natural light of
the world see her.

“Let us set fire
to the darkness, baby. I want to make our passion ignite the darkness with
flames of love.”

He stops for a
second, his eyes darken and he looks directly at her.