PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (44 page)

Mr. Hale seemed to stutter,
his cock pulling free as he reached down and pulled me upright from the table.
I couldn’t look him in the eye as he spun me around, his hand brushing up
against my chest, grasping at the shining badge still pinned to my uniform…

“Well, what’s it gonna be
sweetie?” the blonde asked, but Mr. Hale had lost all of the color in his face.
Leaving me standing there, he reached down to pull up his slacks, stumbling
across the room and managing to sputter the words ‘leave’ and ‘now’ at the girl
before slamming the study door in her face. He returned to me without saying
anything more, fishing my keys from my pocket and delicately uncuffing my hands
before collapsing into one of his chairs.

“I… I’m sorry… There’s been
a misunderstanding. I need to speak with my lawyer,” he began even as I pulled
my panties back up over my hips, working to get my uniform straightened out. My
pussy ached, partly from the sex we’d just had, and partly because it wanted
more. I had to get out of here now. If anyone back at the district found out
about this I’d be off the force before I’d even gotten started. There was no
turning back now. I’d let this happen, and now, there was only one thing left
to do…

“What’s this?” Mr. Hale
asked as I thrust the small slip of paper into his hands. He glanced up, but
still avoided my eyes.

“A ticket for the noise
complaint, Mr. Hale.”

Now he caught my eyes
full-on, the crystalline jade pools eroding what little strength I’d managed to
muster up. My knees were going weak.

“But… What just happened
here… I…”

“You know what happened,” I
replied, trying to calm myself. I could still feel the heat between us, my
heart beating out of my chest. “I gave you a ticket, and I went on my way…”

“Will I see you again?” he
asked, his voice almost desperate.

I stared at him in
disbelief, trying desperately to hide the feelings of desperation and desire
that were still boiling beneath my skin. He’d mistaken me for some kind of
prostitute! He’d taken my innocence and now he wanted to see me again? My mind
battled itself as I tried to make the right choice.

“Maybe…” I replied.

That ‘Maybe’ turned into a
definitely.
Once
or twice a month there would be a call into the station, and I’d be taking the
drive out to the mansion like Nathaniel’s own personal police officer. Usually
it was something innocuous. A theft on the property that Mr. Hale needed to
report… A dispute with a neighbor that needed resolution… And of course, there
was the possibly a little fun on the side.

But that was then, and this is now. The girl he’d
deflowered on his big beautiful desk had grown up, and Nathaniel Hale stayed
exactly the same. He didn’t understand what it was like to have the
responsibilities I was saddled with. Everything was just given to him, and I
started to realize that I was just another of his little toys. What we had… It
wasn’t even exclusive. When I broke things off he didn’t have an argument for
me. There was no declaration of love or boom box held aloft at my shitty
apartment window.

For whatever it was worth, I’d have been happy to
never
see him again.

I closed my eyes and felt a hot trickle of summer
sweat roll down the back of my neck. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I didn’t need
some rich and dominant asshole to validate me. I am a detective now, and I
should be dealing with
real
police
work. How had this man-child become my responsibility?

All I could do was knock again, louder this time.

I knew the answer, of course. Nathan had unwittingly
engaged in some business dealings with the Irish mob and was our only chance at
cutting off the head of the snake, Peter Wallace. Wallace was a ruthless son of
a bitch, even as far as the mob went. He had no problem trafficking young women
and girls to all corners of the globe, and we had reason to believe he’d even
moved a few shipments through our very own bay. When the Coast Guard tried to
intercept one of the containers, they pushed it overboard and straight into the
Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t airtight. Sank like a stone, and took all those poor
girls with it.

That was where Nathan Hale came in. His testimony
would put Wallace behind bars for good this time. There was just one problem:
Nathan Hale wasn’t so keen on testifying against a known killer. Especially not
one with a history of beating the system, one dead witness at a time.

How do you convince a self-important yuppie that
there’s a bigger picture to think about? How do you make a man like that care
about something other than himself?

I opened my eyes and pressed hard on the doorbell.
Self-preservation—that was my angle. That was the way I’d convince Nathan to
put himself on the line in order to save dozens, if not hundreds of people.
Rich men felt very strongly about their belongings. If I could convince him
that everything he held dear, including his own life, was at stake, surely he’d
come around.

But as I jammed my thumb into the button a second
time, I wondered if I was just fooling myself. After all, it wouldn’t be the
first case I’d wasted my time on, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I
thought I could change Nathaniel Hale.

You can lead a
horse to water…

I was just about to drift into that dark place where
all my failures lived when I heard the sound of steel bolts unlatching from the
other side of the massive double doors. I took a deep breath, composing myself
before Nathan Hale opened the door, inflicting another one of his cocky grins
on me.

“Officer Williams,” he said, his eyes scanning every
curve of my body. He leaned on the doorframe. “Fancy seeing you here again.”

I stared at him for a long moment, chewing on what I
would say next. His gilt hair glistened in the blinding sunlight streaming through
the old trees riddled with Spanish moss. It was that time of year when the heat
became unbearable around here, when even ducking into the shade meant enduring
matted hair and clingy, sweat-stained clothes. I had only been out of my car a
few minutes, yet my skin was already prickling with the late summer swelter.

But the longer I looked at him, the more I wondered if
it was really the sun making me hot. Objectively, the guy was gorgeous.

His shoulders were broad and his chest was vast, hard,
and unyielding beneath his surprisingly low-key t-shirt. It was loose near his
stomach, the fabric pooling above his belt and jeans, but I was sure the parts
of his body hidden beneath it were just as taut as the rest of him. Clearly,
he’d been working out quite a bit since the last time I’d torn his clothes off…

Nathan Hale would have been quite the catch if not for
his selfishness.

Then again, that kind of thing seemed standard for
rich boys with too much time on their hands. He’d never known a day of hard work
in his life—I was pretty sure the title of CEO at his father’s old company was
just for show—which meant that he had no empathy for anyone who had to do their
jobs to keep food on the table. He was a spoiled brat, and all the good looks
and money in the world couldn’t make up for that. Standing here now, I wondered
what I ever saw in him…

He had no idea what it was like to be a cop, and a
female cop at that. He had no idea what failing to convince him to testify
would do to my career. It was no coincidence that I’d been chosen for this
task. The Chief knew I had some bad blood with Nathaniel Hale, and setting me
up to fail meant that I’d be easier to write off in the future.

And that wasn’t fair.

I’d clawed my way into this detective position, but the
Chief seemed determined to keep me from going any higher. For all the talk of
equality, the upper echelons of the force were as much of a good old boys club
as they ever were… Everything I’d earned up until now hinged on Nathan seeing
the light. It made me sick to my stomach to think that he might be holding the
future of my career in his hands.

“It’s
detective
now
,
” I said, pulling myself out of the doomsday spiral
I’d sent myself into. “May I come in?”

Nathan shrugged. He opened the door wider, gesturing
into the atrium. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I tried not to roll my eyes as I stepped past him and
into his mansion. Sunlight glinted off the crystal chandelier above us,
spraying fragments of light across the dark wood paneling of the walls. I caught
a few Technicolor prisms dancing on Nathan’s skin as he closed and locked the
door.

“It’s certainly been awhile,” he said, his voice a
thick, honeyed purr that, despite my best efforts to resist, made my skin
ripple with goosebumps. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve prepared the
good stuff.”

“I’m here on business, Mr. Hale,” I corrected him as
gently as I could. There was no use ruining my chances by bruising his ego.
“And I think you know exactly what kind of business I’m talking about.”

I looked around, taking in the vastness of our
surroundings. I didn’t like being out in the open like this, even within the
relative safety of Nathan’s house.

“Is there
someplace we can sit and talk?” I asked him.

Nathan nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets. His
grin was gone, and the light in his eyes had faded like the setting sun giving
way to twilight. He gestured up the flight of wooden stairs run through with a
strip of plush red carpet.

“Come up to my office,” he said, though he let me
mount the stairs first. I glanced up as I began to climb, remembering my first
trip up these stairs. Fitting that we would talk there… Knowing Nathan, he was
just doing this to make me uncomfortable.

But it wouldn’t be the only thing making me feel
uncomfortable right now.

Nathan’s home was big, but it felt hollow. Every step
I took on the hardwood floors echoed throughout each chamber like an errant
round ricocheting in the dark. It was empty, cavernous, and though from the
outside it was truly an enviable estate, traversing its innards like this made
me shiver.

Most houses had some kind of life built right into
them, the product of the people who lived there spilling their energy and
warmth right into the walls. Hell, even in the worst cases, you could still feel
something below the surface, some vibrating remnant of what the house had seen.

Nathan’s mansion was barren, devoid of life.

Despite all those parties I’d had to interrupt, and
all the times I’d let myself get lured inside, there was not a single spark to
be found. It was like I was walking a museum for a relationship that never was,
and never would be.

I turned over my shoulder to him, only to find his
gaze glued firmly to the steady sway of my ass. I rolled my eyes. No wonder
he’d let me go up first.

We reached the landing, and I felt him lay his hand
every so lightly on the small of my back. A chill shot up my spine, then a rush
of heat as he guided me toward a door at the end of the hall.

It’s not a big deal,
I told myself as Nathan’s fingers sent
little electric arcs to play across the flesh beneath my blouse.
Stay
focused. I have a job to do.

I waited as Nathan opened the door for me, ushering me
into his private study. I raised my eyebrows as I looked around. I’d expected
the cold, sleek and heartless room where Mr. Hale had taken my virginity, but
what I found instead was the only room in the whole house that seemed to have a
pulse.

He must have hired an interior decorator… Or maybe it
was some small sign that Mr. Hale was finally starting to act his age.

We were surrounded by bookshelves. They ran from floor
to ceiling, each one brimming with the colorful spines of dozens of books.
There were too many of them to count, their subjects so varied that this one
room could have doubled as a public library.

I spotted some classics, like
Moby Dick
and
The
Wizard of Oz,
and more contemporary titles, like
Gone Girl
and
The
Life of Pi.
He had a wide selection of Asimov’s works near his desk, an
executive-style Louis XVI reproduction that very nearly looked real, and on a
small end table near a hulking stone fireplace, I saw a copy of Machiavelli’s
The
Prince.