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ONE
POUNCING ONTO HER elbows, Sersha awoke suddenly.
Bed low to the floor, black satin sheets, stag heads embroidered in the corner of the pillowcases. Stag. Ire McDade’s nightclub. His private bedroom. Their deal. Sex for silence.
Except she was alone.
“McDade,” she whispered, touching her lips.
What happened? She’d done as told, stripped off and slipped into his bed, then waited and waited… Apparently, he’d never arrived.
Casting the sheet aside, she got up to check the closet. No one. Her hand brushed along the hanging clothes until she snagged a shirt to button it over her bare body.
In the bathroom… Still no one. And no steam or water droplets to suggest recent use.
Leaving by the second door, she rounded into the long living space. A large segmented semi-circular window at the other end let in daylight.
Passing between the seating area and stocked bar, she skirted the dining table to peek outside. No one was out there either. The kitchen by the window tempted her closer. Drinks in the fridge, coffee, nothing to eat. Padded stools, better suited for a bar than a kitchen island, suggested they used the space for entertaining rather than as a full-time residence.
What kind of home would a man like Ire McDade live in?
And where had he gone? Last night she’d assumed he would come to her in bed and hadn’t asked for further instructions. Whatever he expected, he hadn’t been explicit, and there was no way she’d hang around all day waiting and wondering.
Real or not, she took a shower and put her dress back on, pairing it with one of Ire’s suit jackets. For warmth. And to hide the morning-after shame. Not that there had been a night-before. Wasn’t sex what he wanted? Why demand complete sexual submission only to pass up the chance to exploit it?
He didn’t seem like the type to flake on someone. Or the type to sleep next to a sexually accessible woman and keep his hands off. Unless he’d changed his mind about their deal. Shit. What would that mean for their sex tape? Could it already be out there?
Dread became more real in the vacant office. From the internal windows there, she checked out the club below. Empty too.
Being alone was eerie. Everything looked different bathed in the sun streaming through the glazed roof panels. She hadn’t even known they existed. With the club lights and the night always above, she’d never given the ceiling much thought.
The office wasn’t locked. Good. At least she wasn’t a prisoner. No one stood on the stairs, or even at the bottom of them. Where was security? Off-duty? Had she slept through the apocalypse?
The club entrance was closed. No big deal, except how did she open such massive doors? They folded back, maybe, hinges in the middle—a smaller section opened in from the outside before she got that far. What the hell? Another thing she’d never noticed. A door within a door.
Stepping outside, past the guy who’d opened the door, her focus stuck on her McDade protector, Daly, waiting by the Bentley at the curb.
“Going to work?” he asked, opening the back door.
“Home first,” she said, frowning when he held the takeout coffee cup toward her. “What is that?”
“Venti hazelnut latte, skinny, extra shot.”
She laughed, taking the cup from him to sniff the steam. “How do you know my coffee?”
“Normal day is breaking kneecaps and noses collecting cash,” he said. “Getting a guy to spill on your coffee order is cake.”
Uh… “Okay.”
Ducking into the car, the door closed behind her, and she sipped the coffee. Nothing was as she expected. No sex but protection, a driver, and the perfect coffee. What game was McDade playing?
***
WORK HAD A WAY of focusing her. After too many hours in The Chronicler basement archives, she needed to get out of the building. If she didn’t breathe fresh air at regular intervals, she got pretty myopic.
Outside, the Bentley was waiting. Just… waiting. Daly got out as she approached.
“I don’t need the car. I’m going to a deli down the block,” she said, looking up and down the street. “Are you allowed to park there all day?”
