Her heart slammed as she walked across the dance floor, smiling and weaving through people who were all trying to get close to one particular couple. The happy bride and groom to be, she assumed. She would meet Damian, she’d drink her wine, and they’d go pretend to know the couple. Hopefully, Fiona would accept the story. If not… then either Damian would find another way to make her useful, or he wouldn’t. The thought of what could happen after that was terrifying.

  So, she would simply need to make sure that her performance was absolutely perfect.

  “Mr. Demille,” she murmured as she got close to Damian and reached for her glass. “I’m ready for my close-up.”

  He smirked, lifting his glass in a toast. “I’m sure you are. Do you have questions?”

  “Is there anything in particular you need me to say? To not say?”

  He shook his head. “No. She’s a nice kid, from what I understand, Good to her friends, volunteers at pet shelters, reads to kids in schools—if there’s a calling card for a nice person, she’s got it on her resume. As far as I can tell, too, she’s just genuinely nice. It’s not some trap to lure people into some snare. She’s just a good person.”

  There are worse things, Piper thought.

  “Do you know anything about what she likes? Personally, I mean?”

  Damian shook his head. “I trust you to find out.”

  “Okay.” She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, careful to keep it light enough that her lipstick wouldn’t transfer. “Let’s go see what’s happening then.”

  Damian set down both of their glasses, then held out his elbow for her to take. She smiled and threaded her hand through. Her heart was slamming in her chest, but she forced herself to keep breathing.

  The only way out is through, she reminded herself. Become friends with the girl. That won’t be hard.

  And it wouldn’t be. Piper had always had an easy time making friends. She had a knack for keeping conversations just neutral enough to avoid offense until she knew what someone might like or not, and then she could dig in. She’d never yet found a topic she was bored by, not from infosec to the perfect winged liner creation. She loved new things and new learning. She would find something that she and Fiona Chamberlain could be passionate about together.

  The crowd around the couple was thick, but Damian seemed to be a master at making space for his broad-shouldered frame to work its way through. He brought Piper with him without any noticeable effort, and the two of them were at the inner circle before Piper really got her bearings.

  Fiona was absolutely radiant. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was so happy that she looked truly beautiful. She wore a big smile, her eyes were open wide, and happiness just seemed to shine out of her pores. In an old romantic movie, someone would have sighed and commented on young girls in love. She had pretty brown hair that had been styled into an updo and subtle makeup that enhanced her face like a movie star.

  When they got close, Damian reached out and shook the groom-to-be's hand.

  “Alex Goddamn Dodson, how are you?” he said, clapping Alex on the shoulder as they shook hands.

  Piper tried not to look at him in total shock. Everything about the man was completely different. He wore a smile like a hat he’d put on, and his eyes twinkled with contained laughter.

  What blew Piper’s mind was the way Alex smiled back and shook Damian’s hand with vigor. It was like they really did know each other.

  “Hi! Yes, you’re… in accounting—”

  “Damian, yes,” Damian said, and that grin got a little bigger. “When Rich said he was inviting everyone—all the department heads and subs—I didn’t realize that he meant all of us. I’m just honored to be here with you guys.”

  Damian turned towards Fiona and reached out to shake her hand as well. The gesture was just a little different, subtler, but Fiona flashed him a big smile.

  “And we couldn’t believe it, could we, honey?” Alex said, the last bit directed towards Piper, who smiled and nodded eagerly. “At least, I couldn’t believe that your fiancée and my wife had been roommates for a little while in college.”

  Fiona had dropped Damian’s grip, and she turned to look at Piper a little more carefully. Interesting. It didn’t feel like she was being studied by a party girl; it seemed like she was being measured up by a businesswoman. She had a kind of effervescent personality in her mind, a dialed-up version of who she was when she was a little overwhelmed but really happy. On instinct, she dropped that. Whoever had told Damian that Fiona was a party girl, Piper didn’t believe she was the kind of girl who got blackout drunk and forgot who she lived with.

  Piper reached out her hand.

  Fiona took it, still watching her with the same, careful look.

  “Hi,” Piper said. “I don’t blame you if you don’t remember me—”

  Fiona shook her head. “Oh, no, I do, I think. Sophomore year, right at the end of the spring semester. You took over Jackie’s room for a month or so when she took off after spring break.”

  “Yes!” Piper grinned and found Fiona matching her smile. “Wow, after all this time.”

  “It’s surprising,” Fiona said, then pulled Piper in for a sudden hug. “But I’m really glad you’re here.”

  The arms around her shoulders, the soft pressure—it felt surprisingly nice and reassuring. Something in Piper’s head clicked over, and she realized that she’d never had sex with a new guy and not been able to debrief with Marissa immediately afterward. This girl wasn’t Marissa, clearly, but man, being held like that felt nice. She squeezed back and just let herself be for the single moment of the embrace.

  “I’m glad I’m here too,” she said, and when she pulled back, she found Fiona wearing a grin that matched hers.

  “I don’t have a lot of time this second,” Fiona said. “And I expect to be busy tonight.” There was a long, scorching-hot look at her soon-to-be husband. “And maybe tomorrow.”

  My oh my. Clearly not waiting for the wedding night.

  “But as soon as I can, I’ll send someone by, okay?” Fiona added. “We’ve got everything on this boat. We can go for coffee, have a massage, go swimming. And the cruise plan takes us all over the Caribbean, and into some of the coastal South American countries. There’ll be lots of chances to catch up. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to all these years. Okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Piper said.

  She felt the gentle pressure of Damian’s hand on her arm, and she let him take her to the side and give way to the next couple trying to catch the attention of the soon-to-be-married couple.

  “That was too easy,” he said, once they had retreated slightly. “You didn’t actually go to college with her?”

  “Nope,” Piper said. “I went to a state school. That girl did not go to a state school.”

  “You have that right.” Damian studied the couple.

  It was interesting, watching him. Piper knew he was staring at them to try to pick out some small detail. She didn’t know what it was, just that it was catching his attention and not letting go. But he didn’t look like he was looking at them. She could track it, but she doubted it would be immediately obvious to anyone else.

  Except for one man. As she let her eyes wander through the crowd, she saw one man staring in their direction, his gaze unblinking. She wanted to flinch and turn away; it was the sort of stare that made a person want to confess their sins and flee. He wasn’t wearing a clerical collar or robes, though, so she didn’t think he was any sort of priest. He was just a man who was accustomed to looking straight through people.

  She forced her gaze to pass over him, hoping that he wouldn’t have registered whatever subtle—or not so subtle—signs she might have given that she had noticed his attention. She didn’t know what to do or how to do it; she wanted to somehow signal Damian that something was going on, but she didn’t know how to get his attention without it being obvious.

  So she looked over at the happy couple, and let herself see how happy they were. How much they were smiling, how they kept looking at each other. How they seemed to glow with it. She let that permeate her, and then she looked up at Damian. She let the lust from before flow through her again, running through her hard. She thought of him pushing her back against the wall, over and over, abusing her body and taking her against her will—but also how he’d gotten her wine and gently made sure she was alright after he’d taken her so harshly.

  She let that same gushing heat that she saw between Fiona and Alex run through her, and she reached out and stroked her arm down his hand. When Damian glanced towards her, his eyebrows lifted, she leaned up, locked her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss.

  She had expected something like the heated kiss on the docks, but hot damn. That had been an ice cream cone on a January day compared to this. He snarled into her mouth, his arm locking around her waist and one hand on the back of her neck before she could blink. He was shaking just a bit, and as he pulled her snug against her, she felt him, just as iron hard as before in his dress slacks.

  A huge part of her wanted to drop to her knees and suck him off then and there, in front of God, and anyone else who wanted to look her way. She gave good blow jobs. Someone here could certainly take some tips. Someone would film it and put it on YouTube, and she would make a fortune.

  He’s never going to stop wanting me. The thought made wetness gush between her thighs. He’s never going to let me go. Somehow, that thought was even harder. Forget blowing him. He could hike up her skirt and bend her over one of these fucking chairs, and she wouldn’t say no.

  He forced the kiss to a stop, both of them panting.

  “What was that?” he asked, their foreheads still pressed together.

  His mouth was bent in a grin, and his eyes were crinkling at the corners like he was smiling, but the actual look in his eyes was laser tight and focused.

  “There’s a man to our, um, to your nine? Right?”

  He laughed, and that was genuine. At least a little. “On my right is fine.”

  “Okay. On your right. Tall, skinny, brownish hair. Gray suit. He was staring straight at us. Like, not just in our direction, right at us. Like he knew something was up.”

  Damian cursed, then leaned down and pressed another, lighter kiss against her lips. It didn’t do anything to tamp down or extinguish the lusty fire searing through her. She forced herself to keep breathing and to try and stay calm. Stay calm enough so that she wasn’t dripping halfway down her thighs.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I need to circle around a little.”

  Piper nodded and pulled herself up into a seat while Damian stepped away. He wandered towards the buffet table, saying hello and shaking hands every so often as he walked along. He was a gorgeous man, and personable—at least when he wasn’t cold and cruel like he’d been in their cabin before. Which Damian was the real one?

  Somehow, Piper doubted this would be the first time she would ask herself that question. Not for the first time she hated that she hadn’t at least tried to get her phone out of her purse before Todd had tossed her out of the car. She could have called Marissa. The police. Hell, she could have played some Candy Crush while she waited for something to happen. She was really fucking bad at holding still.

  But there was nothing else to do. At least, not right now.

  10

  There was no part of Damian that was calm right now, and the raging erection wasn’t helping. He had some experience with hiding those, and he had plenty of experience with pretending that everything was fine when it was not even remotely fine. What he did not have much experience with was doing all of those things while also worrying about a civilian who had been roped into this nonsense with him.

  The thing was—a prostitute would have stood out as a prostitute, and frankly, no one on the boat would have noticed. He’d spotted three working girls here being—he hoped—well paid and well treated in exchange for making it look like guys who spent this much time with their noses in their stock portfolios could attract women as gorgeous as that. At least a couple more were here on the opposite side of the coin—somehow getting an invite or an in and hoping to meet Daddy Warbucks on the cruise. And that was fine. Live and let live. He wished to hell that Todd had bought him a prostitute.

  A family girl would have been a risk. The Santiagos leaned towards loud and obnoxious, not the kind of girls who would charm Fiona Chamberlain into friendship. And they were well known. The Santiagos had enough above board businesses the girls could lay claim to that they didn’t take shame in dropping their parents' names around town. But that same visibility ran the risk of connecting him to the family—the exact thing he was trying to avoid doing.

  He could have made either of those situations work. But having a civilian here, like this…

  Dammit.

  Maybe she saw someone staring at them. Maybe she had gotten distracted by a ghost. Maybe she was making things up in terror. He didn’t know, but the bullshit thing was he had to be sure. Because if she noticed something was off, and she was right, and he didn’t pay attention, it would be both their asses on the line.

  What the fuck was he going to do?

  When he had looked to the right—to his three, for fuck’s sake, not his nine—he'd seen the back of a man in a gray suit, but nothing else. He had cut through the crowd, trying to catch up, but there were too many people. People who wanted to shake hands and introduce themselves to him, and find out how he knew the bride and groom. He had a thousand cover stories ready to go, but he couldn’t focus on any of them; all he could worry about was how to get through this and make sure the plan was intact. That he was safe to press forward. He should have walked away from this the second he saw the plus one on the invitation.

  Goddammit all to hell.

  The man Piper described fit a description of Rich Chamberlain, that was what was making Damian so edgy. It also fitted the description of a million other rich white guys, and many of them were probably on this damn boat, but if Chamberlain had somehow made him and his cover was blown—well, this job was already going to be hard, but that would have taken it from hard to impossible. At that point, he would grab a lifeboat, take himself and the girl, and row their damn asses back to the shore if necessary. He was a mercenary, and he went where the money was.

  He should have burned an ID years ago and gotten away from this. If he was entirely honest with himself, the only reason he didn’t was his sister. He couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing her again—but more than that, Todd knew her now. If Todd decided to get Damian’s attention again, he would do it by hurting Damian’s little sister. Damian knew that without question.

  “Fucking fuck,” Damian muttered under his breath.

  He had crossed to the other side of the hall, and the man was gone. He turned around, trying to look like he’d lost sight of a friend, but he knew he was too riled up, too jittery. This was a nightmare in progress, and he didn’t know how to get out of it. He had never felt like that before. Like he was on the side of the game where things might not work out the right way. Where he didn’t have all the cards up his sleeve and ready to be played.

  Because of fucking Todd and his fucking failure to know how to do something right.

  That was it. Suddenly, Damian knew what he was going to do. He was going to do his job here, deal with Chamberlain like he’d been hired to do. He would make sure that Piper got her payout—he still had every intention of using her mercilessly, especially if she was going to make him iron hard every time he got a glimpse of her cleavage. And then he would have his guy create an identity for his little sister and her kid, and then he’d make sure they all disappeared.

  He hadn’t spoken to Alison in years. He had no idea whether or not she would be willing to speak to him. It wasn’t like she knew who had paid for the hospital bills. But he had made a career out of being a consummate liar. Something about witness protection, and his connection to her being known, and then he would make it come together.

  From what he had seen, she’d never made a solid life for herself in her small town. He doubted she would mind disappearing into the life of the modestly rich and completely not famous—knowing that she would never have to get shoes for the kiddo at a flea market again.

  He would do this last job, and then he’d do that. Simple. Plain. Easy.

  So why was he standing there, resting his head against the wall and trying to control his breathing, glad that he was out of sight for the moment? Why was his heart pounding?

  He knew, and he knew he would never admit it out loud.

  11

  Damian spotted Piper across the way. She drank her wine and ate from her little plate, accepting more hors d’oeuvres whenever a waiter floated by. She wasn’t watching Damian as he cut through the crowd; he was her “husband”, off to flag down someone for something, which meant she had no reason to worry. No reason to panic. Yet he knew her stomach was probably flipping around like a fish.

  She didn’t have to stay here, not really. Hell, if Rich Chamberlain was on to Damian, she could go to the man, tell him that Damian was there to fuck with him and ask for some kind of protection in exchange.

  But Damian also knew that fear kept her in place because she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be sure, and that meant that she was going to stick with the known quantity. Damian had said he needed her and provided her with compelling proof that he did. She would believe that. At least for now. Until there was a reason to do otherwise.

  But her “assignment”, for lack of a better word, involved getting close to Fiona. Becoming her friend. That meant that, if necessary, she could reveal herself and Damian, and then ask for protection—say that she’d kept silent for so long out of fear for her life. It certainly wouldn’t be a lie.

  There was the loud click of a microphone turning on, and the guests all looked around until they spotted the source of the noise. A tall man stood at the front of the hall on a small dais that had been erected. It took Damian a long moment to recognize him. Rich Chamberlain. Whenever his photograph was taken for the society pages or the most recent charity event or the next big Chamber of Commerce award, he had always looked like the kind of guy who could walk out of the office, roll up his sleeves, and keep up in a logging competition. He was strong through the shoulders, narrow through the waist, and just generally a very good-looking guy.